Brigitte Bardot Dies at 90: France Mourns a Star Who Outshone Her Shadows
Brigitte Bardot, the French actress who embodied 1950s glamour and later became a polarizing activist, has died at 90, reigniting debate over her cinematic triumphs and racially charged rhetoric.
A bombshell silenced
Paris, 6 a.m.—the church bells of Saint-Germain rang a half-minute longer than usual on Monday, a city-wide salute to the woman who once strolled these cobblestones barefoot and made the world stare. Brigitte Bardot, the gingham-clad ingenue who became the face of liberated sexuality in post-war Europe, died late Sunday in her La Madrague estate. She was 90.
The face that launched a thousand headlines
Bardot’s ascent was meteoric. Discovered at 15 on the cover of Elle, she rocketed from pin-up to film icon with And God Created Woman (1956), a performance so combustible it scorched American censorship boards and turned the Riviera village of Saint-Tropez into a global playground. Cinemas overflowed; Time put her on its cover with the single-word caption “B.B.”—and suddenly every garage mechanic from Detroit to Dakar knew who she was.
“She didn’t act sensuality; she invented it,” recalled veteran critic Thierry Chèze. “No one had seen a woman own the screen like property she’d paid cash for.”
From bombshell to barrage
Yet the same mouth that pouted for photographers would, decades later, utter statements that fractured her legacy. In 1997 she published Le Carré de Pluton, lambasting France’s immigration policy; repeated fines for inciting racial hatred followed. Courts slapped her with five convictions between 1998 and 2008, including a €15,000 penalty for remarks about Muslims and halal rituals. Each verdict deepened the public rift: was Bardot a fearless free-speech renegade or an aging megaphone for intolerance?
Animal savior, human lightning rod
In 1986, at 52, Bardot walked away from cinema and into activism, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She auctioned jewelry, real estate, and personal film reels to bankroll campaigns against seal hunts and horse slaughter. Supporters hailed her as the patron saint of four-legged creatures; detractors said she reserved more compassion for stray dogs than for marginalized communities.
- Rescued 30,000 greyhounds from Spanish tracks
- Lobbied the EU to ban seal-product imports
- Donated nearly €5 million of her own fortune to shelters
France’s divided farewell
President Emmanuel Macron’s office issued a terse statement praising “a major figure in French cinema” while carefully sidestepping her legal battles. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, by contrast, hailed Bardot as “a woman who never surrendered to the dictatorship of political correctness.” On Twitter, #Bardot and #RIPBB trended opposite #NoHeroBardot, a reminder that her death arrives freighted with unfinished argument.
“History will remember both the goddess of the Côte d’Azur and the xenophobic pamphleteer,” said sociologist Nadia Khalfa. “France will need to decide which voice echoes louder.”
The final curtain
According to her longtime assistant, Bardot died in her sleep, surrounded by adopted dogs and the sound of waves she once called “the only audience that never judges.” A private funeral will be held in Ramatuelle; fans have already begun laying roses outside the gates of her estate. The family requests donations to animal shelters in lieu of flowers.
Love her or loathe her, Bardot leaves a France that still wrestles with the freedoms she championed—artistic, sexual, and incendiary. The camera loved her first; history will decide if it forgives her last.