Brigitte Bardot’s biggest controversies revealed

She rose to worldwide fame as a symbol of erotic freedom, but retired from film before the age of 40 to devote herself to animal activism – repeatedly stoking public anger with comments that drew fines and convictions in France.

The backlash started early. In 1958 an article appeared in the LA Mirror asked: “Should we ban Brigitte Bardot?”

Columnist Dick Williams complained, “Every time I pick up a newspaper or pass a theater marquee, she’s there, everywhere with her stringy, unkempt hair, her deep cleavage, her bare feet, her dull eyes and her half-open mouth.”

He added that the casual’s nonchalant attitude towards marriage was both shocking and immoral.

But that criticism only strengthened Bardot’s appeal. The bomb had become an international sensation two years earlier And God created woman (1956), playing a teenage orphan with an insolent attitude towards s….

The film made $4 million in the US, a record for a foreign language release, and was banned in several states. A Philadelphia prosecutor labeled it “lascivious, sacrilege, obscene, indecent or immoral” – in a judgment that drew a massive audience.

The philosopher Simone de Beauvoir has summarized Bardot’s impact in an essay entitled The Lolita Syndromewriting, “A saint would sell his soul to the devil just to see her dance.”

Her image helped spark the sexual revolution on both sides of the Atlantic, earning her the label “s– kitten,” a term coined specifically for her.

Yet Bardot refused Hollywood contracts, quit acting before age 40, and insisted on personal autonomy from industry expectations.

Later in life, the controversies shifted from sexuality to the world of cancel culture.

Bardot was fined by the French courts for comments in her memoirs about wanting to abort her son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, now 65, and for comments deemed to incite racial hatred.

Since her retirement, she has been committed to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for animal welfare. “I have given my youth and beauty to men,” she once said, before adding: “I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

Her personal life was turbulent. She married actor Jacques Charrier in 1959 and gave birth to her son the following year.

In her 1996 memoir, she described the pregnancy in extreme terms, calling her unborn child a “cancerous tumor,” saying she had punched herself in the stomach and asked for morphine.

She later told a press conference that she would ‘rather have given birth to a dog’, comments that led to court-ordered damages in 1997.

Professionally, Bardot turned in critically acclaimed performances La Verite (1960) and that of Jean-Luc Godard Le Mepris (1963).

In a 2004 book, Bardot called gays “carnival freaks,” complained about the unemployment benefits “scandal” and claimed France was being “infiltrated” by “sheep-slaughtering Muslims.”

She also recorded music and collaborated with Serge Gainsbourg on, among others Bonnie and Clyde And Je t’aime… Moi Non Pluswith the latter initially being withheld at the request of her then husband Gunter Sachs.

After her retirement in 1973, Bardot settled in Saint-Tropez and intensified her activism.

Her fourth marriage, in 1992, to Bernard d’Ormale linked her to the far right in France.

Between 1997 and 2008, she was convicted five times of inciting racial hatred, including an $18,000 fine for saying, “I am tired of being under the thumb of this population (the Muslim community) who are destroying us, destroying our country and imposing their actions.”

She remained defiant until the end.

In a television interview in May 2025, she rejected #MeToo, defended Gérard Depardieu and stated: “Feminism is not my thing. I like boys.”

Reflecting on her withdrawal from fame, she said: “I had nothing more to say. I am aware that not everyone liked it. In my life I was often photographed and filmed. Now I love nature and peace. Many people were angry with me for that.”