Bardot's Dark Turn: From Sex Symbol to Far-Right Provocateur
The French icon who revolutionized cinema and women's liberation later embraced extremist politics, made racist statements, and rejected the feminist movement she once embodied.
Brigitte Bardot's name has always sparked debate. During her Hollywood heyday, the French actress stirred up trouble simply by existing as a catalyst for sexual freedom. Her early scandals actually served a greater purpose - she broke barriers for women's liberation, smashing through the restrictive expectations that kept females trapped in traditional roles.
When Bardot starred as a free-spirited, sexually confident orphan in Roger Vadim's 1956 film "And God Created Woman," a Philadelphia prosecutor condemned her performance as having "lascivious, sacrilegious, obscene, indecent, or immoral nature." Yet this movie became one of the decade's most significant works. Her "immoral" behavior was actually a crucial step toward gender equality, coinciding with the emergence of second-wave feminism.
The Weight of Fame and Early Retirement
Throughout her career, Bardot embodied a new kind of feminine independence. The British and American media created the term "sex kitten" specifically to describe her unique blend of confidence and playful sensuality - qualities previously associated only with scandal. Her fearless performances literally changed our language.
However, this liberation came at a steep personal cost. Relentless paparazzi attention and exploitation made Bardot feel "inhumane." She walked away from acting at just 39 years old and established The Brigitte Bardot Foundation, devoting herself entirely to animal welfare. When the foundation announced her recent death, they emphasized this humanitarian work, describing her as someone "who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare."
Controversial Writings and Personal Attacks
Years after leaving Hollywood, Bardot shocked France with her 2003 memoir "A Cry in the Silence." The book contained vicious attacks on LGBTQ individuals, calling them "cheap f*ggots or circus freaks," and criticized unemployed people as those "who only accept jobs on the black market ... and cash in on taxpayers' money." She also described schools as "dens of depravations filled with drug dealers, young terrorist clubs and condom users."
Even more disturbing was her 1996 memoir, where Bardot described her only child, Nicolas-Jacques, as a "cancerous tumor" and said she would have "preferred to give birth to a little dog." A court later ordered her to pay $34,000 in damages to her son and his father.
Embrace of Extremist Politics
Bardot's political transformation accelerated after her 1992 marriage to Bernard d'Ormale, an advisor to ultra-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. She grew to despise liberal values, multiculturalism, and the European Union. Bardot praised the Holocaust-denying Le Pen as "faithful to his ideas through thick and thin" and called his daughter Marine Le Pen "the Joan of Arc of the 21st century."
Between 1997 and 2008, French courts fined Bardot five times for inciting racial hatred. She received a $18,000 fine for stating: "I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population [the Muslim community] which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts." In 2018, she faced another lawsuit for calling residents of the French island of Réunion "aboriginals who have kept the genes of savages."
Her anti-Muslim rhetoric was particularly venomous. Bardot claimed France was being "invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims" and warned that "[Muslims will] cut our throats one day and it will serve us right." The European Jewish Congress condemned these statements as "deeply offensive."
Rejection of Her Own Legacy
Perhaps most ironically, Bardot later rejected the feminist movement she had helped create. During a recent interview, she criticized the #MeToo movement, saying "People with talent who grab a girl's bottom are thrown into the bottom of the ditch. We could at least let them carry on living." She dismissed women sharing their harassment stories as "hypocritical and ridiculous."
Reflecting on her own experiences, Bardot claimed: "I was never the victim of sexual harassment. And I found it charming when men told me that I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside." She bluntly stated, "Feminism isn't my thing. I like guys."
This tragic transformation from liberation icon to extremist provocateur raises difficult questions about separating an artist's contributions from their later harmful actions. While Bardot's early work genuinely advanced women's rights, her subsequent embrace of hatred and division cannot be excused or ignored.