At the time, Bardot quickly swatted away false online reports that she had died.<\/p>\n
“I don\u2019t know which imbecile launched this fake news regarding my disappearance, but know that I\u2019m fine and have no intention of bowing out,” she had posted on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n But a month later, in November 2025, Bardot was hospitalized again for what French news outlets <\/a>described a \u201cserious\u201d health issue.<\/p>\n Born a brunette on Sept. 28, 1934, in Paris, Bardot became world famous after she dyed her hair blonde and starred in the 1956 movie \u201cAnd God Created Woman,\u201d which was directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim.<\/p>\n The provocative French melodrama about a voluptuous teenager who scandalizes Saint-Tropez was a box office smash both abroad and in the United States, despite mixed critical reviews and condemnation by watchdog groups like The National Legion of Decency.<\/p>\n Dubbed a \u201csex kitten\u201d <\/a>by British film producer Tony Tenser, Bardot broke through as the so-called sexual revolution was underway, women were embracing birth control, and many moviegoers were searching for racier fare.<\/p>\n French feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir called her a \u201clocomotive of women\u2019s history\u201d and \u201cthe most liberated woman in post-war France\u201d in a 1959 essay titled \u201cBrigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n French President Charles de Gaulle declared that Bardot was a \u201cFrench export <\/a>as important as Renault cars.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, BB, as the French affectionately called her, went on to appear in more than 40 movies, including a handful of Hollywood productions, before retiring from acting at age 39.<\/p>\n But before she retreated to her estate on the French Riviera to lead a far more reclusive life, Bardot bared it all in the pages of Playboy to mark her 40th birthday. <\/p>\n And soon she was championing a new cause. <\/p>\n \u201cI gave my youth and my beauty to men,\u201d Bardot later said,<\/a> \u201cbut I give my wisdom and experience to animals.\u201d<\/p>\n Bardot appealed to the Danish queen to halt the mass killings of dolphins in the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n Bardot became a hero to animal rights activists. And in 1985, when France awarded her the Legion of Honor medal, Bardot insisted it was for her work to save animals \u2014 not for her movies.<\/p>\n \u201cI take this Legion of Honor for my fight in favor of animals,\u201d Bardot declared<\/a>. <\/p>\n In 1986, the former actor founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation <\/a>and harnessed her fame to lead campaigns against, among other things, the eating of horse meat and the hunting of turtle doves in France. <\/p>\n In her later years, Bardot gravitated to far-right politics and was fined repeatedly for inciting racial hatred against Muslim immigrants to France, according to news reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n In her 1996 memoir<\/a>, Bardot outraged many fans by declaring her support for far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Her fourth husband, businessman Bernard d\u2019Ormale, had been an adviser to Le Pen.<\/p>\n The Nazis were occupying Paris when Bardot was growing up in a luxurious seven-bedroom apartment and dreaming of becoming a ballerina. <\/p>\n Raised by conservative Catholic parents, Bardot chafed against her upbringing. But she was allowed to take dance classes. And in 1950 she landed, at age 15, on the cover of Elle magazine after the editor spotted her at a train station.<\/p>\n That led to a movie audition the next year, where Bardot met Vadim, who was 24 at the time.<\/p>\n Despite the age difference, they fell in love. And over her parents\u2019 objections, Bardot and Vadim married on Dec. 21, 1952, three months after her 18th birthday.<\/p>\n Bardot embarked on a movie career that, early on, included a small part in the 1953 Hollywood production \u201cAct of Love,\u201d starring Kirk Douglas.<\/p>\n Three years later, while shooting an Italian movie called \u201cMio figlio Nerone,\u201d Bardot at the urging of the director dyed her hair blonde and turbocharged her career.<\/p>\n Bardot was box office gold and even won critical acclaim for her turns in internationally-produced movies like “The Truth” (1960) and “Viva Maria!” (1965). But she mostly steered clear of Hollywood, although she did play herself in the 1965 comedy \u201cDear Brigitte.\u201d<\/p>\n Bardot did not think much of her own acting.<\/p>\n \u201cI started out as a lousy actress and have remained one,\u201d she reportedly said, according to The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bardot also recorded some 60 pop songs in the 1960s and 1970s, many of them in collaboration with French singer Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she had an affair while married to her third husband, German millionaire Gunter Sachs.<\/p>\n One of Bardot\u2019s best-known musical forays was a cover<\/a> of Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cYou Are The Sunshine of My Life\u201d with French singer Sacha Distel.<\/p>\n By her own admission, Bardot\u2019s personal life was tempestuous.<\/p>\n Her marriage to Vadim began falling apart on the set of \u201cAnd God Created Woman\u201d when she embarked on an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant.<\/p>\n It was one of many infidelities that Bardot has admitted to over the years.<\/p>\n Two years later, Bardot married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she had her only child — a son named Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, who was born in January 1960.<\/p>\n Bardot, in her memoir, wrote that she was \u201cnot made to be a mother.\u201d She wrote that her unborn child was like a \u201ccancerous tumor\u201d that she tried to remove by punching herself in the stomach.<\/p>\n When that marriage broke up after three years, Charrier got custody of their son. <\/p>\n Father and son later sued Bardot for the \u201churtful remarks\u201d in the memoir and were awarded $36,200 in damages<\/a>. <\/p>\n Bardot and her son, who lives in Norway, later reconciled. And she met her grandchildren and great-granddaughter.<\/p>\n Her three-year marriage to Sachs in 1966 was also marked by multiple infidelities, but it ended in an amicable divorce.<\/p>\n \u201cA year with Bardot was worth 10 with anyone else,\u201d Sachs reportedly said<\/a> after the marriage was over. <\/p>\n![\"Jean](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251017-brigitte-bardot-god-created-women-ONETIMEUSE-mn-1445-eff8e5.jpg\")
Jean Louis Trinignant and Brigitte Bardot in “And God Created Woman.” Globe Photos \/ Alamy <\/p>\n![\"French](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251017-brigitte-bardot-mn-0950-bd5dc3.jpg\")
French actress Brigitte Bardot at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.Sipa via AP file<\/p>\n![\"Brigitte](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251017-brigitte-bardot-fur-protest-mn-1440-198dcb.jpg\")
Brigitte Bardot at a protest against fur trapping in Paris in 1997. Georges Merillon \/ Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images file<\/p>\n![\"Animal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251017-brigitte-bardot-animals-mn-0950-c9c891.jpg\")
Brigitte Bardot visits her dog refuge in Paris in 2001.Charly Hel \/ Prestige \/ Getty Images file<\/p>\n![\"Brigitte](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251020-brigitte-bardot-roger-vadim-mn-1720-94d5ab.jpg\")
Brigitte Bardot and Roger Vadim French during their wedding in Paris in 1952.Hulton Archive \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Brigitte](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251020-sacha-distel-brigitte-bardot-mn-1650-736f5f.jpg\")
Brigitte Bardot and Sacha Distel perform on the “Sacha Show” in 1967.Jean Adda \/ INA via Getty Images file<\/p>\n![\"Brigitte](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251020-brigitte-bardot-son-charrier-mn-1700-0e6ec8.jpg\")
Brigitte Bardot and her husband, Jacques Charrier, with their son, Nicolas, in 1960. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n