Brigitte Bardot is considered one of the world’s greatest sex icons and most prominent animal rights activists. Today she celebrates her 90th birthday.
With scandalous films such as “And the Woman Eternally Lures”, “Contempt” and “The Daisy is Stripped of Leaves”, Brigitte Bardot rose to become one of the most famous film stars and sex symbols of her time in the 1950s and 1960s. With her iconic pout and her highly teased hairstyles, she was one of the most photographed women in the world at the time and led a lavish jet-set life for many years alongside stars like Jacques Charrier, 87, and playboys like Gunter Sachs (1932-2011).
From film star to radical animal rights activist
When she unexpectedly gave up her acting career at the beginning of the 1970s, there was horror not only in her French homeland. But BB, as she is still called for the sake of simplicity, has consistently enforced her decision ever since and devoted herself to animal protection with militant passion.
After she had already publicly campaigned against seal hunting, the consumption of horse meat and cruel slaughter methods, she auctioned off a large part of her real estate and cars in 1986, and with a heavy heart even parted with the jewelry of her ex-husband Gunter Sachs and the wedding dress, in which she married her first husband Roger Vadim (1928-2000) at the age of 18. She used the money to found the “Fondation Brigitte Bardot,” which still exists today and which, according to its statutes, is dedicated to “fighting for the cause of animals in France and around the world.”
Together with her large team, she set up several animal shelters to take in abandoned and mistreated animals. According to its own information, the foundation currently looks after more than 11,000 animals, including cats, dogs, sheep and even pigs.
For over 40 years now, the former film icon has lived in seclusion in her villa on the beach in St. Tropez, surrounded by numerous four-legged friends that she regularly rescues from animal shelters or traveling circuses. In addition to her foundation she also uses her X account for their fight for animal welfare. She repeatedly posts photographed handwritten statements there in which she takes a stand on various animal protection issues, but also on socio-political content.
Sympathizer of the radical right
Since her marriage to her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, 83, in 1992, Brigitte Bardot has had a reputation for sympathizing with the political right in her home country and for cultivating a racist worldview. Bernard d’Ormale was a long-time advisor to the right-wing extremist Front National and its then-chairman Jean-Marie Le Pen, 96. It seems that his political views have now rubbed off on the former sex symbol.
In 2012, she openly supported the candidacy of Marine Le Pen, 56, who has continued the former National Front under the name “Rassemblement National” since 2018. At the time, Bardot described Le Pen as a good choice primarily because she wanted to demand animal rights and work for a “strong France.” In recent years, the radical animal rights activist has emphasized that she does not feel that she belongs to any party and states that she has always made political statements exclusively in the interests of animal protection.
Aside from her questionable views on the alleged Islamization of France and her blatant aversion to feminist discourse, at least her impulsive statements, for which she has repeatedly been tried and fined in the past, are actually mostly related to her fight for this Animal welfare.
In court for racist insults
At the end of 2021, she was fined 20,000 euros for racial slurs after describing the residents of the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean as a “degenerate population with barbaric traditions.” She had previously protested against alleged animal cruelty on the island in a letter to the local prefect. The residents there are “natives who have preserved the genes of the savages.” In the same year she was also put on trial for militant attacks on the French hunting association, whose chairman she had described on her foundation’s website as a “terrorist of the animal world”.
In an interview with “Welt” about her autobiography “Tears of Fighting,” which was published in 2018, she told journalists that she has not considered herself a member of the human species for a long time. “I’m different,” she said there. “I have the looks of a human and the soul of an animal. I notice this in the way I see things, in the deep feelings I have for animals and for weak creatures in general – for things that people despise and that are my life.” In contrast to humans, animals are loyal until the end of their lives, no matter what they have to endure.
“I’m already fed up with this birthday!”
Even now aged 90, Brigitte Bardot continues to pursue her fight for the animal world with unbroken militancy and passion. The former sex icon seems to be only marginally interested in her own birthday, which she will celebrate today, September 28th, with her four-legged friends – and perhaps a few people too.
A few days ago, in an interview with the French news agency “AFP”, she expressed her annoyance about her upcoming special day: “It’s pouring rain, I have to open a lot of mail, I’m already fed up with this birthday!”. In general, she doesn’t really care about her age; in fact, she hasn’t even noticed that she’s gotten older.
The following also applies to her birthday: “I retreat from people into my quiet solitude, which suits me very well.” Although she gave up her film career at the time, she still looks back on it fondly. “I am very proud of what I achieved in my early life,” said Bardot. “My fame helps me today in my commitment to animal protection.”