Notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ 1960s sex symbol Brigitte Bardot dies at 91
Brigitte Bardot has died at the age of 91. (Gilles BASSIGNAC/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images/ Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)
Brigitte Bardot has died at the age of 91. (Gilles BASSIGNAC/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images/ Herbert Dorfman/Corbis via Getty Images)
Notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ 1960s French actress Brigitte Bardot has died at her home in Saint-Tropez at the age of 91.
The death of the actress was announced by her animal protection foundation, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, on Sunday (28 December), with French president, Emmanuel Macron leading tributes and remembering her as a figure of “universal brilliance”.
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century,” Macron wrote.
Ses films, sa voix, sa gloire éblouissante, ses initiales, ses chagrins, sa passion généreuse pour les animaux, son visage devenu Marianne, Brigitte Bardot incarnait une vie de liberté. Existence française, éclat universel. Elle nous touchait. Nous pleurons une légende du siècle.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) December 28, 2025
But Bardot, initially marketed as a “blonde bombshell” sex symbol who went on to become an animal welfare campaigner, was no saint.
Bardot’s film career began with the 1956 film And God Created Woman, written and directed by her then husband, Roger Vadim, which propelled her to stardom. By the 1960s, she had become a figurehead of the era’s sexual liberation and in 1986 she launched the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, dedicated to animal protection.
Between 1997 and 2008, the actress was fined five times by French courts for her inflammatory comments about homosexuality, immigration, ethnic minorities and Islam. She also openly defended the far right and supported Jordan Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.
She once described Le Pen as “the Joan of Arc of the 21st century”. She was even sued by her own son, Nicolas, for emotional distress after she said she would have preferred to have “given birth to a little dog”.
In 2018, comedian Kate McKinnon, while appearing on Saturday Night Live, took aim Bardot over her opinions on the #MeToo movement. Bardot had accused women who had spoke about their experience of sexual harassment and assault of being “hypocritical and ridiculous”.
Her 2003 book “A Cry in the Silence” saw her openly endorse right-wing politics while attacking gay men and lesbians, schoolteachers, and what she described as the “Islamisation of French society”, resulting in a conviction for inciting racial hatred.
Bardot was married four times, with her last marriage being to the former Le Pen adviser Bernard d’Ormale, whom she married in 1992.
In her final book, “Mon BBcedaire”, (“My BB Alphabet”) published in October this year, Bardot made derogatory remarks about gay and trans people.
Her cause of death has not been made public. However, she was briefly hospitalised in October for a “minor” procedure, according to her office.
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