Brigitte Bardot Dies at 91

Brigitte Bardot — the French actress, pop star, animal rights activist, style icon, and anti-Muslim agitator — has died. She was 91. She died Sunday at her home in Saint-Tropez, according to a representative from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. Speaking to The Associated Press, they said no memorial has been arranged at this time.

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. She began modeling in 1949, which quickly spun into an acting career. She met the director Roger Vadim during an audition for his film Les Lauriers sont coupés. He called her personally to tell her she didn’t get the role, and that rejection turned into a romance. Bardot was 15 and Vadim was 22. They married when she turned 18.

Vadim cast Bardot in …And God Created Women, launching her into international superstardom in 1956. Bardot is credited as being the first “sex kitten,” the term coined for her performance in the film. Her look in the film has become a perennial touchpoint for fashion in the decades since. Although Bardot and Vadim divorced in 1957, they continued to collaborate on films and remained good friends until his death in 2000.

Alongside her acting career, Bardot became a pop star of the ‘60s. Her songs include “Bonnie and Clyde” with Serge Gainsbourg, “Harley Davidson,” and “Contact.” In 1969, she became the official face of Marianne, the French symbol for liberté, egalité et fraternité. Her face was printed on the franc.

Bardot retired from acting shortly before her 40th birthday, which she celebrated by appearing in Playboy. She then put all her energy into animal rights activism. Bardot’s first big action was posing with baby seals to protest their hunting on the Canadian ice floe. In 1985, she won the Legion of Honor for her activism. The following year, she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. “Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told the AP in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”

Later in life, Bardot pivoted from animal rights to anti-Muslim extremism. She was convicted five times in French court for inciting racial hatred, primarily from her opposition to the slaughter of sheep for Muslim holidays. She was also highly dismissive of the Me Too movement. In 1992, she married Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Bardot supported Marine Le Pen in her 2012 presidential run, calling the far-right leader “incredibly French.” Despite this, Bardot was mourned by Le Pen’s 2017 opponent, French President Emmanuel Macron eulogized Bardot on Twitter. “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,” he wrote. “We mourn a legend of the century.”