French film icon killed animal crusader Brigitte Bardot at the age of 91

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Bardot, calling her a symbol of freedom and describing her as a defining figure in the country’s cultural history.

“Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sadness, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. The French existence, the universal genius. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century,” Macron wrote on X.

Bardot stepped out of the spotlight in 1973 at the height of her fame, later simply explaining that she had “had enough”.

“There was some exhaustion there, not just from the work pace, but just [being] the endless subject of a camera lens, be it a still camera lens or a film lens,” says James Clarke, a British-based author and author of the photo book Being Bardottold outlets earlier this year. “That’s one of the things to come[s] a little out [in this book]… She got to the point where it was like, ‘I did it a little bit and twenty years was enough.’”