lit a candle 56m ago"I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience, what's left of my life, to animals." She said that years ago. Still true.
Their story
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, the French actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist who became one of the defining screen icons of the mid-twentieth century, died on 28 December 2025 at her home La Madrague in Saint-Tropez, France. She was 91. Her husband, Bernard d'Ormale, later said she died of cancer…
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, the French actress, singer, model, and animal rights activist who became one of the defining screen icons of the mid-twentieth century, died on 28 December 2025 at her home La Madrague in Saint-Tropez, France. She was 91. Her husband, Bernard d'Ormale, later said she died of cancer after two operations. The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announced her death the same day. A funeral and public homage were held in Saint-Tropez on 7 January 2026.
Born in Paris on 28 September 1934 to Louis Bardot and Anne-Marie Mucel, she grew up in a prosperous conservative Catholic household in the 16th arrondissement and studied ballet, including classes with Boris Knyazev at the Conservatoire de Paris. As a teenager she modelled for Elle. An early audition introduced her to Roger Vadim, whom she married in 1952. After supporting roles in the early 1950s, she became an international star with And God Created Woman (1956), directed by Vadim. The film made her a worldwide symbol of postwar French cinema and sexual liberation. Charles de Gaulle later called her a French export as important as Renault cars.
Across roughly two decades she appeared in dozens of films, including The Truth (1960), for which she won a David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress, Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963), and Louis Malle's Viva Maria! (1965), which brought a BAFTA nomination. She also recorded popular songs, often with Serge Gainsbourg, and from 1969 to 1972 her features were used as a model for Marianne, the emblem of the French Republic. She retired from acting in 1973, saying she wanted an elegant exit from the industry.
After leaving cinema she devoted her public life to animals. In 1986 she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals, funding it in part by auctioning jewelry and personal belongings. She campaigned against seal hunting, horse meat, and other practices she opposed, and received recognition from the United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour and from animal-protection groups. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985. Her later years were also marked by controversial political statements and multiple French court convictions and fines for inciting racial hatred, often linked to remarks about immigration and ritual slaughter.
Bardot married four times: Vadim (1952-1957), Jacques Charrier (1959-1962), with whom she had her only child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, born in 1960; Gunter Sachs (1966-1969); and Bernard d'Ormale from 1992 until her death. She lived for decades at La Madrague in Saint-Tropez, the Riviera town long associated with her image. After her death, French President Emmanuel Macron called her a legend of the century. She is remembered as a style and film icon who helped popularize the bikini and Saint-Tropez, and as a relentless animal-rights campaigner whose foundation continues her work.
Biography adapted from English Wikipedia (Brigitte Bardot); Associated Press obituaries and funeral coverage; Reuters; Paris Match via Independent (husband on cancer).
Photos
1Brigitte Bardot, 1958 photograph by Willy Pragher
by People Forever
didn't know she said that, that's something