Brigitte Bardot

Bardot was married to filmmaker Roger Vadim from 1952 to 1957, actor Jacques Charrier from 1959 to 1962, German businessman Gunter Sachs from 1966 to 1969, and Bernard d’Ormale from 1992 until her death. She had one child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, with Jacques Charrier.

After Bardot and Charrier divorced, Charrier was awarded custody of Nicolas, who lived primarily with his paternal grandparents. Bardot remained estranged from her son for much of his life and wrote openly about her difficult feelings toward motherhood and pregnancy in her 1996 memoir Initiales B.B. Nicolas and Charrier later sued Bardot for invasion of privacy and received damages.

Bardot trained as a ballerina at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance. She appeared on the cover of France’s Elle magazine at 15, which helped lead her toward acting. Roger Vadim, then an aspiring filmmaker and screenwriter, helped shape her public image and later directed her in several films.

Her international breakthrough came with Vadim’s And God Created Woman (1956), in which she played the sexually liberated Juliette Hardy in Saint-Tropez. The film challenged contemporary conventions surrounding nudity and sexuality, set box-office records in Europe and the United States, and made Bardot a global sex symbol. Vadim also directed her in The Night Heaven Fell (1958).

Bardot’s notable films included The Truth (1960), Love on a Pillow (1962), Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), Viva Maria! (1965), Dear Brigitte (1965), Masculine Feminine (1966), and The Bear and the Doll (1970). She co-starred with Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! and appeared alongside Kirk Douglas in Act of Love (1953). Her fashion, including her tousled hair and bold eyeliner, also influenced international style.

Bardot made her final films in 1973 and retired from acting that year at 39. She later settled in Saint-Tropez and largely withdrew from the film spotlight.

Bardot pursued music alongside her film career and recorded around 60 pop songs during the 1960s and early 1970s. Her albums included Brigitte Bardot Sings (1960) and Special Bardot (1968), and she recorded songs with French vocalist and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.

Her image became closely associated with French popular culture and the era’s changing ideas about female sexuality and independence. Bardot’s likeness inspired the representation of Marianne, the allegorical figure of the French Republic, and was later used on statues, postage stamps, and coins.

After retiring from acting, Bardot redirected her public work toward animal protection. She established the Foundation for the Protection of Distressed Animals in the mid-1970s and founded the Foundation Brigitte Bardot for the Welfare and Protection of Animals in 1986. Her campaigns addressed seal hunting, animal testing, and other forms of animal cruelty.

Her activism contributed to the Council of Europe’s ban on importing seal fur and to a French ban on ivory imports. The Foundation Brigitte Bardot confirmed her death in Saint-Tropez on December 28, 2025.

Bardot’s later public statements made her a polarizing figure. She was convicted and fined several times for remarks considered incitement to racial hatred, including comments about Muslims in her 2003 book Un Cri dans le silence. She also attracted criticism for homophobic remarks, opposition to interracial marriage and immigration, and her 2018 dismissal of the Me Too movement. She supported National Front politician Marine Le Pen in the 2012 and 2017 French presidential campaigns.