Brigitte Bardot, Polarizing Icon of Beauty, of Fascism, of France, Dies at 91
There will never be another like her — which is not all bad news
December 29, 2025
When legendary sex symbol and French institution Brigitte Bardot died yesterday at 91, I was traveling. That meant I’d only get to do a quickie obit on my Gr8erDays Instagram, and that was okay — after all, along with her achievements in film, she has spent the more recent part of her long life as an outspoken xenophobe. I wasn’t exactly eager to memorialize her.
That said, I posted a simple RIP that noted her iconic status and that called out her far-right views. The end, right?
Interestingly, though many larger accounts gushed about her beauty and her admirable devotion to animal rights, with few comments about her polarizing views — which included being anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, comparing LGBTQ+ people to pedophiles and valuing animals far more than people — my little post generated some outrage.
In general, I received two types of complaints.
First, I had a few people miffed that I would “politicize” her passing. One person praised her by saying she had never been a “sheep.” Ah, yes! Those famously individualistic pursuits of racism, sexism and homophobia.
I don’t believe pointing out that Bardot was an outspoken xenophobe is any kind of reach, let alone a politicization. It’s simply reality, and a major part of her reality. She was fined at least half a dozen times for inciting racial hatred, convicted at trial by a French court. She also willingly expressed her far-right views in her book Initiales B.B. (1995), a best seller.
I had another commenter zing me for (on another account) mentioning “one less homophobe.” He found this appalling and argued that it was not my place to judge her, but that I should instead be forgiving in death. Sure. Let’s forgive Trump, too. I think the idea that I should not judge a fascist is impossibly weak. It’s a low threshold that I think it’s okay to call out despicable people in their obits, and as a gay guy, why would I fawn over someone who trashed people like me in her book?
I do have self-respect.
But the biggest pushback I received was from lefties angry I so much as noted Bardot’s passing. This strikes me as … bizarre. One commenter wondered, respectfully, why I would choose to spotlight someone so hateful. I explained that I hadn’t chosen to spotlight her — I didn’t randomly write an appreciation post, I reported her death.
Another person pointedly observed that in mentioning her death at all, I was “making a choice,” implying that even though I pointed out her beliefs, I was somehow either glossing over or even endorsing them. Immediate block. Sometimes, the stupid is too deep to reason with.
The fact is that if you’re operating a news outlet — let alone one devoted to entertainment nostalgia centered on the era of 1989 and before — it would be a conscious departure from reality to ignore the passing of one of France’s most consequential film and pop cultural figures.
Are we in Bizarro World, or is there not a way to note the totality of an important figure’s existence without endorsing all the bad stuff?
So, all that said, The AP reported that Brigitte Bardot died December 28 at her home in southern France. Her death was confirmed by Bruno Jacquelin of her Brigitte Bardot Foundation, an animal-rights org.
No cause was offered, but she had undergone what was termed a “serious operation” in October, and had survived breast cancer 40 years prior.
Bardot was born September 28, 1934, in Paris. At first a ballerina, she took up acting in 1952, going on to appear in 47 films over the next two decades.
Though her early work was undistinguished — Crazy for Love (1952), The Girl in the Bikini (1952), Les dents longues (1953), His Father’s Portrait (1953), Act of Love (1953) and others — she began to capture the imaginations of French filmgoers with the musical Naughty Girl (1956), in which she acted with Alain Delon, her male parallel. (Including, later in life, politically.)
Her next films were also big hits — Plucking the Daisy (1956) and The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful (1956).
Her 18th film, And God Created Woman in 1956, became a star-making moment, one that rocked the entire international film industry.
She was directed in the unapologetically erotic film by her husband Roger Vadim (whom she would divorce the following year). The melodrama was Vadim’s first film, starring Bardot and Jean-Louis Trintignant in the story of a sexually free teenager. Its nudity and its very relaxed attitude toward sex drove its reputation, making it the highest-grossing foreign film in U.S. box-office history — one whose exhibition led to arrests of theater managers in some conservative areas.
The fatefully titled And God Created Woman launched Bardot as an A-list star and eternal sex symbol, often imitated, one whose louche beauty lent itself perfectly to still photography as well as film. A huge part of what makes Bardot appealing to this day is held within her still timelessly beautiful photos, which are on par with those of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
It could be argued that the photos of Bardot are so visually stunning, they are in part what has overpowered the reality of who she was, and who she became.
Following And God Created Woman, some of her other major splashes included In Case of Adversity (1958), The Female (1959), Babette Goes to War (1959), Come Dance with Me (1959) and The Truth (1960). For her performance in the latter, Bardot was recognized as an actor, not just a sex kitten, receiving the David di Donatello for Best Foreign Actress.
In spite of her runaway success, she was falling apart personally, which included affairs and a suicide attempt.
Bardot’s power extended into the ‘60s with the films A Very Private Affair (1962), Love on a Pillow (1962), Le Mépris (1963) and Une ravissante idiote (1964).
By 1965, Bardot was dipping her toe into American films, doing so with the forgettable Dear Brigitte (1965), in which she briefly plays herself, the love object of a boy whose dad is played by Jimmy Stewart. She fared better in Viva Maria! (1965), but her run cooled with films like Two Weeks in September (1968), Shalako (1968) and Les Femmes (1969).
She wrapped up her film career with a bang — after acting in a string of frothy comedies, including The Legend of Frenchie King (1971), Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973) and The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973), she called it quits with a 40th-birthday nude spread in Playboy.
She also left behind a not-insubstantial singing career. Among her releases was “Harley Davidson” (1967) by Serge Gainsbourg. One song whose release she blocked was her version of Gainsbourg’s “Je t’aime … moi non plus.” Jane Birkin’s version in 1967 became an international smash, but Bardot’s had to wait until 1986 to be heard. One suspects there are several Bardot songs that could yet become TikTok trends.
Bardot’s next phase was that of a militant animal-rights activist. Turned on to the cause by Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, she posed with seal pups and set up her Brigitte Bardot Foundation, going on to help raise millions for animals.
As kind-hearted as her approach to animals was, Bardot’s relationship with fellow human beings sometimes lacking. She was a self-professed serial cheater, one definitely not cut out for motherhood. While married to her second husband, actor and artist Jacques Charrier (who died about three months before Bardot this year), she gave birth to her only child, a son. She referred to being pregnant as having a “tumor” and willingly gave up custody of her flesh and blood.
Bardot was next married to socialite Gunter Sachs from 1966-1969, but by far her longest marriage (and her longest of the 17 relationships she wrote she’d had in her entire life) was to Bernard d’Ormale. She wed the far-right politico in 1992, and remained with him until her death.
As previously referenced, Bardot’s later life was a mass of contradictions of her prior image. She was frequently in court, whether for defaming her ex-husband or mocking gay men as “fairground freaks” while claiming her entire inner circle was made up of them.
Though often charged with inciting racial hatred, she was not easily compartmentalized into U.S. right-left boxes. For example, she trashed Sarah Palin as “a disgrace to women” … yet ridiculed the #MeToo movement by saying she had always enjoyed being complimented on her ass.
Nonetheless, she was firmly in the camp of fascism, endorsing Marine Le Pen in 2012 and 2017 and referring to her — gulp — as a modern-day Joan of Arc.
Perhaps summing up her complicated legacy, in spite of her far-right beliefs, Bardot was warmly eulogized by French President Emmanuel Macron, as politically dissimilar as it gets, who offered:
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.”
It was a reference to how Bardot’s face was used as Marianne’s, the face of France, for a time during the waning years of her film career.
Fortunately, as iconic as she admittedly was and forever remained, Bardot’s was not the face of all of France for all time.⚡️