Brigitte Bardot dies at 91

Brigitte Bardot's (divisive) farewell: from the sexy legend of cinema to all-out warfare in defense of animals.

The myth: Paris, dance, and the explosion on the big screen Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris on September 28, 1934. Before cinema, there was the discipline of dance: a strict education, an adolescence marked by restlessness, and an obsession with physical perfection as a means of redemption.

It was photography that opened the first door for her: fashion shoots, covers, the lens that made her recognizable even before the credits rolled.

Her encounter with director Marc Allégret propelled her into the industry; her encounter with Roger Vadim—then her assistant—changed her private life and public career. Marriage at a young age, her entry onto film sets, a rapid apprenticeship: by the early 50s, Bardot was racking up roles and fame, building a persona that broke with the etiquette of the time and raised the bar for female representation.

In the years when Hollywood favored "soap and fresh" images, Bardot imposed a European eroticism, both direct and childlike, becoming an international symbol. Topless, scandals, imitations: her image was plastered on posters and transformed into a cultural, as well as cinematic, model.

Films, love affairs, and media pressure: the price of freedom

Bardot's filmography spans both auteur and popular cinema, with a broad and uneven output, yet always under the spotlight. Among the most emblematic titles of her golden age are Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, Louis Malle's Vie Privée, and Henri-Georges Clouzot's La Verité: different films, but a common thread—Bardot as a public body and a fleeing identity.

Her sentimental chronicle, often overlapping with her work, became a permanent chapter in her biography: Vadim, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Gilbert Bécaud, Raf Vallone, Sacha Distel. In 1959, she married Jacques Charrier, and in 1960, her only son, Nicolas-Jacques, was born. Motherhood did not domesticate her character: the pressure of social judgment, the celebrity machine, and a radical need for autonomy fueled a fragility that Bardot did not hide, even reaching extremes.

Other famous loves and relationships that make as much news as the films follow: Günter Sachs (whom she marries in 1966), Serge Gainsbourg — with the story of the song Je t'aime… moi non plus — until their marriage in
1992 with Bernard d'Ormale. Meanwhile, however, something changes: the star begins to look beyond the screen.

The turning point: from icon to militant

The first signs of her animal rights commitment emerged in the early 60s. It wasn't a superficial shift: Bardot broke with the entertainment industry and gradually shifted the focus of her public identity to animal rights. She became a vegetarian, denounced animal husbandry and slaughter practices, and attacked hunting and furs in a tone that sought no compromise.

The decisive step came with the creation of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, conceived as a permanent intervention structure: shelters, support for associations, media campaigns, and lobbying institutions. The public narrative that accompanied it also included the symbolic act of auctioning off personal possessions (jewelry and valuables) to finance the activity: a way to convert celebrity capital into resources and action.

The countryside: a multi-front war for animals

Over the decades, the Foundation and Bardot the activist have focused their action on some recurring targets, often with harsh and deliberately polarizing communication:

Fighting the fur trade and cruelty fashion with public appeals and pressure on brands

Campaigns against hunting and against practices considered particularly cruel (in France and beyond)

Report on the conditions of intensive farming and slaughterhouses

Interventions for the recovery and protection of abandoned pets, with support for shelters and care facilities

Protests against animal-based entertainment, from circuses to other forms of performance deemed harmful to animal welfare.

The common thread is the use of fame as a megaphone: Bardot doesn't "sponsor" the cause, she embodies it. And above all, she doesn't sugarcoat it.

Controversies: When Animal Rights Becomes Political Ground
Bardot's second life hasn't been straightforward. Some of her positions—particularly her denunciations of ritual slaughter (halal) and, more generally, her alarm over the "Islamization" of France—have generated accusations of racism and fueled a conflict that transcended the issue of animal welfare, shifting it to identity and political realms.

There were also rifts on the personal and literary levels. The publication of her memoirs and autobiographical texts sparked family backlash and controversy, while some of her social statements exposed her to accusations of homophobia, which she denied. At the same time, her openly right-wing political choices cemented her image as a divisive figure: for some, consistent and inflexible, for others, uncompromising and provocative.

The Legacy: Two Lives, One Name

If cinema transformed her into one of the definitive images of the 20th century, animal rights activism made her unique: a star who, rather than perpetuating the myth, "expended" it in a daily battle, often bitter, often controversial. Bardot remains that way: a popular icon and, at the same time, a radical activist. Beloved and contested, but hard to ignore.