By Antonio Torres del Cerro
Paris (EFE).– Brigitte Bardot, the French actress and singer who became a global symbol of cinema and sensuality in the 1950s and 1960s, died on Sunday at the age of 91, her foundation announced.
Her death stirred deep emotion in France, where she is remembered as a paradoxical cultural icon, both a symbol of sexual emancipation and a fierce critic of modern feminism.
Bardot’s passing in Saint-Tropez has reignited debate around a figure who embodied contradiction, admired as a global emblem of freedom while often provoking controversy for her political and social views.
The death, following a hospitalization in October and years away from public life, has shocked a country that lost another of its most revered and internationally known cinematic myths, Alain Delon, just over a year ago at the age of 88.
The causes of Bardot’s death have not been disclosed, nor have details of her funeral arrangements.
Often compared to Marilyn Monroe as a sexual myth of the 20th century, Bardot died at La Madrague, one of her two properties in the exclusive resort town of Saint-Tropez, a place she fell in love with during the filming of And God Created Woman (1956).
As police cordoned off her residence in anticipation of admirers, residents laid flowers at the statue erected in her honour in Saint-Tropez.
Meanwhile, France’s political class, led by President Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to her legacy as both an actress and a successful singer.
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face turned into Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. A French existence with universal radiance. She moved us. We mourn a legend of the century,” Macron wrote on X.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen described Bardot, known universally as “BB” as “extraordinarily French,” praising her lifelong commitment to animal protection following her retirement from cinema in 1973, a cause she pursued through the foundation bearing her name.
Bardot publicly expressed ideological affinities with Le Pen on several occasions, a stance that drew widespread criticism.
Between 1997 and 2008, she was repeatedly fined by French courts for statements deemed to incite hatred, particularly against Muslims.
Her views on the resurgence of feminism following the #MeToo movement from 2018 also sparked controversy. Bardot dismissed some accusations against men as “hypocritical,” arguing that certain actresses had “provoked producers to get roles.”
A symbol of emancipation before controversy
Yet long before these polemics, Bardot had emerged as a symbol of female emancipation, according to film historian Antoine de Baecque, author of Bardot (Pérégrines), published earlier this year.
In an interview with EFE in 2024, de Baecque recalled that writers such as Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir had praised Bardot.
Beauvoir, in a 1958 article for Esquire, wrote that Bardot represented a sexual freedom that challenged patriarchal norms.
Bardot’s rise in the 1950s and 1960s marked a quiet revolution in post-war, conservative France.
Beyond her screen roles, marked by an unapologetic sensuality and iconic blonde hair, she projected what would today be described as an “anti-system” image.
She openly acknowledged having undergone two abortions, the first at 17, from pregnancies with director Roger Vadim, whom she later married.
She also stated she never wanted to be a mother, becoming one reluctantly with Nicolas-Jacques Charrier.
Vilified by sections of France’s conservative press as “a sinner” or even “a prostitute,” Bardot found defenders among leading intellectual and cinematic figures such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, icons of the Nouvelle Vague.
Alongside her brief but vertiginous film career, Bardot also enjoyed lasting success in music. Her song Je t’aime… moi non plus, recorded in 1967 with former lover and enfant terrible of French chanson Serge Gainsbourg, remains iconic, with her sensual breathing still provoking reaction decades later.
After leaving cinema, Bardot devoted herself fully to animal rights activism.
Her photographs denouncing seal hunting in Canada in the 1970s became emblematic, and her campaign continued until the final months of her life.
In her most recent media appearance, an interview with BFMTV in May 2025, Bardot renewed her call for a ban on hunting in France, describing it as an act of extreme cruelty toward animals. EFE
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