1934–2025
Latest News: Brigitte Bardot Dies at Age 91
Brigitte Bardot, the model and actor who gained fame as an onscreen sex symbol and later committed her life to animal activism, died Sunday, December 28, at age 91 in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera. Bardot’s animal protection organization, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, confirmed her death.
No cause of death was provided. Bardot underwent surgery for an unspecified ailment in October and was hospitalized weeks later, according to NBC News.
Bardot, who rose to prominence in the 1956 movie And God Created Woman, also recorded around 60 pop songs during the 1960s and early ’70s, but redirected her attention to animal conservation following her retirement in 1973. “Animals have never betrayed me. They are an easy prey, as I have been throughout my career. So we feel the same. I love them,” she previously said, according to The Guardian.
Bardot was an undeniable symbol of French culture. Her likeness appeared on statues, postage stamps, and coins, and Bardot served as inspiration for “Marianne,” an allegorical female figure representing the values of the French Republic, according to the Associated Press.
“She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on X.
Who Was Brigitte Bardot?
Brigitte Bardot was a French model and actor who graced the cover of Elle magazine as a teen and went on to star in several films before starring in 1956’s And God Created Woman, which launched her to international fame. She appeared in dozens of films over her career, including Contempt and Viva Maria!, and retired from acting in the 1970s. She subsequently devoted her life to animal activism. Bardot died on December 28, 2025, in Saint-Tropez, France.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Brigitte Bardot
BORN: September 28, 1934
DIED: December 28, 2025
BIRTHPLACE: Paris, France
SPOUSES: Roger Vadim (1952-1957), Jacques Charrier (1959-1962), Gunter Sachs (1966-1969), and Bernard d’Ormale (1992-2025)
CHILD: Nicolas-Jacques Charrier
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra
Early Life and Films
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934, in Paris. She studied ballet as a teenager at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance and appeared on the cover of France’s Elle magazine at the age of 15. She was discovered by screenwriter and future filmmaker Roger Vadim, and the two wed in 1952. Bardot made her big-screen debut that year as well, in Le Trou Normand. Various roles followed, including as a romantic leading lady in La Lumiere d’en Face (1954) and a handmaiden in Helen of Troy (1955).
International Sex Symbol
Bardot was featured in Vadim’s directorial debut, And God Created Woman (1956), in which the actor played a sexually liberated young woman in the southern French town of Saint-Tropez. The film was noted for its daring nudity and sensual dynamics, proving popular to moviegoers and launching Bardot to international stardom. Through her films and off-screen photos taken by the paparazzi, Bardot became renowned for displaying a naturalistic, free-flowing sensuality that spoke to the concept of joie de vivre, becoming Europe’s top actor.
Bardot and Vadim divorced in 1957, but maintained a professional relationship, as he directed her 1958 film The Night Heaven Fell. Bardot was featured in other projects like The Parisienne (1958), La Femme et le Pantin (1959), and Come Dance With Me (1959). During the making of the 1960 film La Verité, however, Bardot attempted suicide on her 26th birthday. Decades later, the actor spoke about how nightmarish the world of celebrity had become and the pressures of constantly aiming to display a certain image.
Recording Career
During the 1960s, Bardot embarked on a career as a musical artist, releasing albums like Brigitte Bardot Sings (1960) and Special Bardot (1968). She also recorded hits with French vocalist/songwriter/lounge-man Serge Gainsbourg.
Her big-screen work continued with the likes of the layered, acclaimed Jean-Luc Godard drama Contempt (1963), the humorous, visually arresting Louis Malle film Viva Maria! (1965)—in which she co-starred with fellow French beauty Jeanne Moreau—and the romantic comedy of seduction Les Femmes (1969). She also played herself in the comedy Dear Brigitte (1965), in which the tween son of a professor, played by Jimmy Stewart, gets to meet the cinematic object of his affection. Bardot’s beauty was further immortalized in the form of famous French sculpture Marianne, unveiled in 1970 and modeled after the actor.
Bardot retired in 1973 and went to live in Saint-Tropez.
Animal Activism and Controversies
Bardot turned from moviemaking to her love of animals and established the Foundation for the Protection of Distressed Animals in the mid-1970s. She founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals in the mid-1980s. Her work led to the Council of Europe banning the importation of seal fur and the French government banning ivory imports.
Bardot’s status as a global beauty icon was celebrated by a number of art and fashion institutions. However, she also courted controversy for making discriminatory comments against Muslims, resulting in several fines for inciting racial hatred.
In January 2018, after Catherine Deneuve and 100 other prominent French women published an open letter that criticized the #MeToo movement, Bardot backed their sentiments in an interview with Paris Match. Noting how “lots of actresses try to play the tease with producers to get a role" before turning around and claiming harassment, she accused most of them of “being hypocritical and ridiculous.” She said she was never the victim of sexual harassment, adding, “I found it charming when men told me that I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside.”
Son and Personal Life
In the late 1950s, Bardot married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she had son Nicolas—her only child. The couple divorced in 1962. Bardot then married German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs in 1966, divorcing three years later.
Years later, in 1992, Bardot wed extreme right-wing political aide Bernard d’Ormale. The couple remained together until Bardot’s death in 2025.
Bardot remained estranged from son Nicolas for much of his life. Charrier maintained custody following his divorce from Bardot, and Nicolas lived primarily with his paternal grandparents. “I didn’t bring up Nicolas because I needed support, roots,” Bardot later said. “I couldn’t be Nicolas’ roots because I was completely uprooted, unbalanced, lost in that crazy world.”
Bardot also made controversial statements in her 1996 memoir Initiales B.B., accusing Charrier of abuse and comparing her pregnancy to “having a tumor growing inside of me.” Nicolas and Charrier sued Bardot for invasion of privacy and were awarded around $40,000 in damages.
Death
Bardot underwent surgery for an unspecified ailment in October 2025 and was hospitalized a month later following a period of “ill health,” according to NBC News.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation confirmed the actor died at her home in Saint-Tropez on December 28, 2025.
Quotes
- My parents gave me a strict upbringing, which at times has caused me to suffer distress but today I am grateful to them for it.
- [Roger] Vadim became famous worldwide as a director, and I as an actress, but the other side of the coin was terrible. My life was totally turned upside down. I was followed, spied upon, adored, insulted. My private life became public.
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