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The following year, she co-starred with Anthony Perkins in the comedy Une ravissante idiote (1964). Dear Brigitte (1965), Bardot's first Hollywood film, was a comedy starring James Stewart as an academic whose son develops a crush on Bardot. Bardot's appearance was relatively brief in the film, and the movie was not a big success. More successful was the Western buddy comedy Viva Maria! (1965) for director Louis Malle, appearing opposite Jeanne Moreau. It was a big hit in France and worldwide, although it did not break through in the United States as much as had been hoped for.

After appearing in a cameo in Godard's Masculin Féminin (1966), Bardot starred in her first outright flop in some years, Two Weeks in September (1968), a French–English co-production. She had a small role in the all-star Spirits of the Dead (1968), acting opposite Alain Delon, then tried a Hollywood film again: Shalako (1968), a Western starring Sean Connery, which was another box-office disappointment.

Bardot participated in several musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury, and Sacha Distel, including "Harley Davidson"; "Je me donne à qui me plaît"; "Bubble gum"; "Contact"; "Je reviendrai toujours vers toi"; "L'Appareil à sous"; "La Madrague"; "On déménage"; "Sidonie"; "Tu veux, ou tu veux pas?"; "Le Soleil de ma vie" (a cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"); and "Je t'aime... moi non plus". Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wish; the following year, he rerecorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin that became a massive hit all over Europe. The version with Bardot was issued in 1986 and became a download hit in 2006 when Universal Music made its back catalog available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.

Final films: 1969–1973

=================

From 1969 to 1972, Bardot was the official face of Marianne, who had previously up until then been anonymous, to represent the liberty of France.

Bardot's next film Les Femmes (1969) was a flop, although the screwball comedy The Bear and the Doll (1970) performed better. Her last few films were mostly comedies: Les Novices (1970), Boulevard du Rhum (1971) (with Lino Ventura). The Legend of Frenchie King (1971) was popular, helped by Bardot co-starring with Claudia Cardinale. Bardot made one more movie with Vadim, Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973), in which she played the title role. Regarding the film, Vadim said: "Underneath what people call 'the Bardot myth' was something interesting, even though she was never considered the most professional actress in the world. For a few years, since she has been growing older and the Bardot myth has become just a souvenir, I wanted to work with Brigitte. I was curious in her as a woman, and I had to get to the end of something with her, to get out of her and express many things I felt were in her. Brigitte always gave the impression of sexual freedom – she is a completely open and free person, without any aggression. So I gave her the part of a man – that amused me."

During the filming, Bardot said: "If Don Juan is not my last movie it will be my next to last." She kept her word and made only one more film, The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973). In 1973, Bardot announced she was retiring from acting as "a way to get out elegantly". In 1974, Bardot appeared in a nude photo shoot in Playboy magazine, which celebrated her 40th birthday.

Animal rights activism

=================

Bardot met Paul Watson in 1977, the same year he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, during an operation to condemn the massacre of seal pups and seal hunting on the Canadian ice floe. In support of animal protection, Bardot went to the ice floe after being invited by Watson. Bardot posed lying down next to the seal pups; the photos were seen worldwide. Bardot and Watson remained friends.

After appearing in more than 40 motion pictures and recording several music albums, Bardot used her fame to promote animal rights. In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million francs (about US$430,000 in 1986) to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and personal belongings.

Bardot was a strong animal rights activist and a major opponent of the consumption of horse meat. In 1989, while looking after her neighbor Jean-Pierre Manivet's donkey, it displayed excessive interest in Bardot's older donkey mare, and she subsequently had the neighbor's donkey castrated due to concerns the mating would prove fatal for her mare. The neighbor then sued Bardot, and Bardot later won, with the court ordering Manivet to pay 20,000 francs for creating a "false scandal". Bardot urged French television viewers to boycott horse meat and was soon the target of death threats in January 1994. Not backing off from the threats, she sent a letter to the minister of agriculture, Jean Puech, calling on him to ban the sale of horse meat. Bardot wrote a 1999 letter to People's Republic of China President Jiang Zemin, published in French magazine VSD, in which she accused the PRC of "torturing bears and killing the world's last tigers and rhinos to make aphrodisiacs". She donated more than US$140,000 over two years in 2001 for a mass neutering and adoption program for Bucharest's stray dogs, estimated to number 300,000.

In August 2010, Bardot addressed a letter to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, appealing for the sovereign to halt the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands. In the letter, Bardot described the activity as a "macabre spectacle" that "is a shame for Denmark and the Faroe Islands ... This is not a hunt but a mass slaughter ... an outmoded tradition that has no acceptable justification in today's world". On 22 April 2011, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand officially included bullfighting in the country's cultural heritage. Bardot wrote him a highly critical letter of protest. On 25 May 2011, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society renamed its fast interceptor vessel, MV Gojira, as MV Brigitte Bardot in appreciation of her support.

From 2013, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, in collaboration with Kagyupa International Monlam Trust of India, operated an annual veterinary care camp. Bardot committed to the cause of animal welfare in Bodhgaya over several years. On 23 July 2015, Bardot condemned Australian politician Greg Hunt's plan to eradicate 2 million cats to save endangered species such as the Warru and night parrot. At the age of 90, Bardot appealed to free Watson, who had been detained in Greenland since 21 July 2024, when Japan requested his extradition. Through a request expressed in mid-October 2024 by her lawyers and Sea Shepherd France, Bardot asked French President Emmanuel Macron to grant Watson political asylum. Bardot asked Macron to show "a little bit of courage". During that month, she initiated a demonstration in support of Watson in front of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Bardot also wrote a letter to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, asking her to "not choose the camp of the oceans' gravediggers".

Personal life

=================

Habits

=================

Bardot had a habit of going barefoot in the streets of Saint-Tropez and Capri, which became a part of her public image, and was incorporated into her character Juliette in And God Created Woman.

Relationships and family

=================

Bardot was married four times with her final marriage lasting longer than the previous three combined. By her own count, she had a total of 17 romantic relationships. She often left one partner for another when, in her words, "the present was getting lukewarm"; she explained, "I have always looked for passion. That's why I was often unfaithful. And when the passion was coming to an end, I was packing my suitcase."

Roger Vadim

=================

Bardot married director Roger Vadim on 20 December 1952, when she was 18. They separated in 1956 after she became involved with And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, and they divorced the following year. Trintignant was at the time married to actress Stéphane Audran. Bardot and Vadim had no children together, but remained in contact for the rest of his life and later collaborated on several projects. Bardot and Trintignant lived together for about two years, spanning the period before and after her divorce from Vadim, although they never married. Their relationship was complicated by Trintignant's frequent absences due to military service and Bardot's affair with musician Gilbert Bécaud.

Jacques Charrier

=================

After recovering from an overdose in 1958, Bardot began a relationship with actor Jacques Charrier, whom she married on 18 June 1959. She had an affair with Glenn Ford in the early 1960s. Bardot and Charrier divorced in 1962. Sami Frey was mentioned as the reason for her divorce from Charrier. Bardot was enamoured of Frey, but he quickly left her.

Pregnancy and son

=================

Bardot became pregnant before she and Charrier married. Bardot was extremely dismayed—she had previously stated "I am not a mother, nor do I want to be one"—and sought an abortion; however, abortion was illegal at that time in France. In her book Initiales B. B: Mémoires, she recalled: "I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid." Numerous times, she punched herself in the stomach and asked her doctor for morphine in an attempt to abort the baby.

During the final months of her pregnancy, photographers surrounded her house, vying for photos of a pregnant Bardot. Nicolas-Jacques Charrier was born on 11 January 1960, seven months after their wedding. He was Bardot's only child. She had been so wary of the press that she decided to give birth at home. Following his birth, Bardot became depressed and attempted suicide.

She later wrote that her son was a "cancerous tumour" and that she would have "preferred to give birth to a little dog". She also added, "I'm not made to be a mother. I'm not adult enough—I know it's horrible to have to admit that, but I'm not adult enough to take care of a child." She refused to breastfeed Nicolas and whenever she held him, he sensed her agitation and began to cry.

After she and Charrier divorced, the latter gained sole custody of Nicolas. When Nicolas was 12, he asked Bardot if he could stay with her, but she turned him away in favour of party guests. Nicolas was hurt and did not speak to her afterwards. In her memoirs, Bardot wrote that she loved Nicolas "the most in the world", but Nicolas wanted nothing to do with her. When he married Norwegian model Anne-Line Bjerkan in 1984, Bardot was not invited to the wedding.

Bardot became a grandmother when the two had daughters in 1985 and 1990. She tried to make peace with him on multiple occasions, but to no avail. In 1997, Charrier and Nicolas sued her and her publisher, Grasset, for the hurtful remarks she had made in her memoir. She was ordered to pay Charrier £17,000 and Nicolas £11,000. In 2018, she stated that she and Nicolas, by then a grandfather himself, were on good terms, speaking regularly and visiting each other once a year.

Gunter Sachs

=================

Bardot's third marriage was to German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs, lasting from 14 July 1966 to 7 October 1969, though they had separated the previous year.

Bernard d'Ormale

=================

Bardot's fourth husband was Bernard d'Ormale, who has been described as a former advisor to the right-wing politician, Jean Marie Le Pen. They were married from 16 August 1992 until her death on 28 December 2025.

Other relationships

=================

Bardot was invited to the birthday party of musician Sacha Distel in 1958, and they had a much-publicized relationship until 1959. From 1963 to 1965, she lived with musician Bob Zagury. While filming Shalako, she rejected Sean Connery's advances; she said, "It didn't last long because I wasn't a James Bond girl! I have never succumbed to his charm!" In 1967, while married to Sachs, she had a relationship with singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg; they recorded two songs together: "Je t'aime... moi non plus", which was not released until 1986, and "Bonnie and Clyde". In 1968, she began dating Patrick Gilles, who co-starred with her in The Bear and the Doll (1970); but she ended their relationship in 1971.

Over the next few years, Bardot dated bartender/ski instructor Christian Kalt, nightclub owner Luigi "Gigi" Rizzi, writer John Gilmore, actor Warren Beatty, and Laurent Vergez, her co-star in Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman. In 1975, she entered a relationship with artist Miroslav Brozek and posed for some of his sculptures. Brozek was also an occasional actor; his stage name is Jean Blaise. The couple lived together for four years, separating in December 1979. From 1980 to 1985, Bardot had a live-in relationship with French TV producer Allain Bougrain-Dubourg. In 2018, in an interview accorded to Le Journal du Dimanche, she denied rumors of relationships with Johnny Hallyday, Jimi Hendrix, and Mick Jagger.

Wealth

=================

Yahoo estimated Bardot's net worth to be around US$65 million. She was estimated to have made about $5 million from her 1997 memoir Initials B.B. After her separation from Vadim, Bardot acquired a historic property dating from the 16th century, called Le Castelet, in Cannes. The fourteen-bedroom villa, surrounded by lush gardens, olive trees, and vineyards, consisted of several buildings. She listed it for sale in 2020, for €6 million. In 1958, she bought a second property called La Madrague, located in Saint-Tropez, for 24 million francs, where she lived until her death in 2025.

Politics and legal issues

The following year, she co-starred with Anthony Perkins in the comedy Une ravissante idiote (1964). Dear Brigitte (1965), Bardot's first Hollywood film, was a comedy starring James Stewart as an academic whose son develops a crush on Bardot. Bardot's appearance was relatively brief in the film, and the movie was not a big success. More successful was the Western buddy comedy Viva Maria! (1965) for director Louis Malle, appearing opposite Jeanne Moreau. It was a big hit in France and worldwide, although it did not break through in the United States as much as had been hoped for.

After appearing in a cameo in Godard's Masculin Féminin (1966), Bardot starred in her first outright flop in some years, Two Weeks in September (1968), a French–English co-production. She had a small role in the all-star Spirits of the Dead (1968), acting opposite Alain Delon, then tried a Hollywood film again: Shalako (1968), a Western starring Sean Connery, which was another box-office disappointment.

Bardot participated in several musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury, and Sacha Distel, including "Harley Davidson"; "Je me donne à qui me plaît"; "Bubble gum"; "Contact"; "Je reviendrai toujours vers toi"; "L'Appareil à sous"; "La Madrague"; "On déménage"; "Sidonie"; "Tu veux, ou tu veux pas?"; "Le Soleil de ma vie" (a cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life"); and "Je t'aime... moi non plus". Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wish; the following year, he rerecorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin that became a massive hit all over Europe. The version with Bardot was issued in 1986 and became a download hit in 2006 when Universal Music made its back catalog available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.

Final films: 1969–1973

=================

From 1969 to 1972, Bardot was the official face of Marianne, who had previously up until then been anonymous, to represent the liberty of France.

Bardot's next film Les Femmes (1969) was a flop, although the screwball comedy The Bear and the Doll (1970) performed better. Her last few films were mostly comedies: Les Novices (1970), Boulevard du Rhum (1971) (with Lino Ventura). The Legend of Frenchie King (1971) was popular, helped by Bardot co-starring with Claudia Cardinale. Bardot made one more movie with Vadim, Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973), in which she played the title role. Regarding the film, Vadim said: "Underneath what people call 'the Bardot myth' was something interesting, even though she was never considered the most professional actress in the world. For a few years, since she has been growing older and the Bardot myth has become just a souvenir, I wanted to work with Brigitte. I was curious in her as a woman, and I had to get to the end of something with her, to get out of her and express many things I felt were in her. Brigitte always gave the impression of sexual freedom – she is a completely open and free person, without any aggression. So I gave her the part of a man – that amused me."

During the filming, Bardot said: "If Don Juan is not my last movie it will be my next to last." She kept her word and made only one more film, The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973). In 1973, Bardot announced she was retiring from acting as "a way to get out elegantly". In 1974, Bardot appeared in a nude photo shoot in Playboy magazine, which celebrated her 40th birthday.

Animal rights activism

=================

Bardot met Paul Watson in 1977, the same year he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, during an operation to condemn the massacre of seal pups and seal hunting on the Canadian ice floe. In support of animal protection, Bardot went to the ice floe after being invited by Watson. Bardot posed lying down next to the seal pups; the photos were seen worldwide. Bardot and Watson remained friends.

After appearing in more than 40 motion pictures and recording several music albums, Bardot used her fame to promote animal rights. In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the welfare and protection of animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million francs (about US$430,000 in 1986) to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and personal belongings.

Bardot was a strong animal rights activist and a major opponent of the consumption of horse meat. In 1989, while looking after her neighbor Jean-Pierre Manivet's donkey, it displayed excessive interest in Bardot's older donkey mare, and she subsequently had the neighbor's donkey castrated due to concerns the mating would prove fatal for her mare. The neighbor then sued Bardot, and Bardot later won, with the court ordering Manivet to pay 20,000 francs for creating a "false scandal". Bardot urged French television viewers to boycott horse meat and was soon the target of death threats in January 1994. Not backing off from the threats, she sent a letter to the minister of agriculture, Jean Puech, calling on him to ban the sale of horse meat. Bardot wrote a 1999 letter to People's Republic of China President Jiang Zemin, published in French magazine VSD, in which she accused the PRC of "torturing bears and killing the world's last tigers and rhinos to make aphrodisiacs". She donated more than US$140,000 over two years in 2001 for a mass neutering and adoption program for Bucharest's stray dogs, estimated to number 300,000.

In August 2010, Bardot addressed a letter to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, appealing for the sovereign to halt the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands. In the letter, Bardot described the activity as a "macabre spectacle" that "is a shame for Denmark and the Faroe Islands ... This is not a hunt but a mass slaughter ... an outmoded tradition that has no acceptable justification in today's world". On 22 April 2011, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand officially included bullfighting in the country's cultural heritage. Bardot wrote him a highly critical letter of protest. On 25 May 2011, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society renamed its fast interceptor vessel, MV Gojira, as MV Brigitte Bardot in appreciation of her support.

From 2013, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, in collaboration with Kagyupa International Monlam Trust of India, operated an annual veterinary care camp. Bardot committed to the cause of animal welfare in Bodhgaya over several years. On 23 July 2015, Bardot condemned Australian politician Greg Hunt's plan to eradicate 2 million cats to save endangered species such as the Warru and night parrot. At the age of 90, Bardot appealed to free Watson, who had been detained in Greenland since 21 July 2024, when Japan requested his extradition. Through a request expressed in mid-October 2024 by her lawyers and Sea Shepherd France, Bardot asked French President Emmanuel Macron to grant Watson political asylum. Bardot asked Macron to show "a little bit of courage". During that month, she initiated a demonstration in support of Watson in front of the Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Bardot also wrote a letter to Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, asking her to "not choose the camp of the oceans' gravediggers".

Personal life

=================

Habits

=================

Bardot had a habit of going barefoot in the streets of Saint-Tropez and Capri, which became a part of her public image, and was incorporated into her character Juliette in And God Created Woman.

Relationships and family

=================

Bardot was married four times with her final marriage lasting longer than the previous three combined. By her own count, she had a total of 17 romantic relationships. She often left one partner for another when, in her words, "the present was getting lukewarm"; she explained, "I have always looked for passion. That's why I was often unfaithful. And when the passion was coming to an end, I was packing my suitcase."

Roger Vadim

=================

Bardot married director Roger Vadim on 20 December 1952, when she was 18. They separated in 1956 after she became involved with And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, and they divorced the following year. Trintignant was at the time married to actress Stéphane Audran. Bardot and Vadim had no children together, but remained in contact for the rest of his life and later collaborated on several projects. Bardot and Trintignant lived together for about two years, spanning the period before and after her divorce from Vadim, although they never married. Their relationship was complicated by Trintignant's frequent absences due to military service and Bardot's affair with musician Gilbert Bécaud.

Jacques Charrier

=================

After recovering from an overdose in 1958, Bardot began a relationship with actor Jacques Charrier, whom she married on 18 June 1959. She had an affair with Glenn Ford in the early 1960s. Bardot and Charrier divorced in 1962. Sami Frey was mentioned as the reason for her divorce from Charrier. Bardot was enamoured of Frey, but he quickly left her.

Pregnancy and son

=================

Bardot became pregnant before she and Charrier married. Bardot was extremely dismayed—she had previously stated "I am not a mother, nor do I want to be one"—and sought an abortion; however, abortion was illegal at that time in France. In her book Initiales B. B: Mémoires, she recalled: "I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid." Numerous times, she punched herself in the stomach and asked her doctor for morphine in an attempt to abort the baby.

During the final months of her pregnancy, photographers surrounded her house, vying for photos of a pregnant Bardot. Nicolas-Jacques Charrier was born on 11 January 1960, seven months after their wedding. He was Bardot's only child. She had been so wary of the press that she decided to give birth at home. Following his birth, Bardot became depressed and attempted suicide.

She later wrote that her son was a "cancerous tumour" and that she would have "preferred to give birth to a little dog". She also added, "I'm not made to be a mother. I'm not adult enough—I know it's horrible to have to admit that, but I'm not adult enough to take care of a child." She refused to breastfeed Nicolas and whenever she held him, he sensed her agitation and began to cry.

After she and Charrier divorced, the latter gained sole custody of Nicolas. When Nicolas was 12, he asked Bardot if he could stay with her, but she turned him away in favour of party guests. Nicolas was hurt and did not speak to her afterwards. In her memoirs, Bardot wrote that she loved Nicolas "the most in the world", but Nicolas wanted nothing to do with her. When he married Norwegian model Anne-Line Bjerkan in 1984, Bardot was not invited to the wedding.

Bardot became a grandmother when the two had daughters in 1985 and 1990. She tried to make peace with him on multiple occasions, but to no avail. In 1997, Charrier and Nicolas sued her and her publisher, Grasset, for the hurtful remarks she had made in her memoir. She was ordered to pay Charrier £17,000 and Nicolas £11,000. In 2018, she stated that she and Nicolas, by then a grandfather himself, were on good terms, speaking regularly and visiting each other once a year.

Gunter Sachs

=================

Bardot's third marriage was to German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs, lasting from 14 July 1966 to 7 October 1969, though they had separated the previous year.

Bernard d'Ormale

=================

Bardot's fourth husband was Bernard d'Ormale, who has been described as a former advisor to the right-wing politician, Jean Marie Le Pen. They were married from 16 August 1992 until her death on 28 December 2025.

Other relationships

=================

Bardot was invited to the birthday party of musician Sacha Distel in 1958, and they had a much-publicized relationship until 1959. From 1963 to 1965, she lived with musician Bob Zagury. While filming Shalako, she rejected Sean Connery's advances; she said, "It didn't last long because I wasn't a James Bond girl! I have never succumbed to his charm!" In 1967, while married to Sachs, she had a relationship with singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg; they recorded two songs together: "Je t'aime... moi non plus", which was not released until 1986, and "Bonnie and Clyde". In 1968, she began dating Patrick Gilles, who co-starred with her in The Bear and the Doll (1970); but she ended their relationship in 1971.

Over the next few years, Bardot dated bartender/ski instructor Christian Kalt, nightclub owner Luigi "Gigi" Rizzi, writer John Gilmore, actor Warren Beatty, and Laurent Vergez, her co-star in Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman. In 1975, she entered a relationship with artist Miroslav Brozek and posed for some of his sculptures. Brozek was also an occasional actor; his stage name is Jean Blaise. The couple lived together for four years, separating in December 1979. From 1980 to 1985, Bardot had a live-in relationship with French TV producer Allain Bougrain-Dubourg. In 2018, in an interview accorded to Le Journal du Dimanche, she denied rumors of relationships with Johnny Hallyday, Jimi Hendrix, and Mick Jagger.

Wealth

=================

Yahoo estimated Bardot's net worth to be around US$65 million. She was estimated to have made about $5 million from her 1997 memoir Initials B.B. After her separation from Vadim, Bardot acquired a historic property dating from the 16th century, called Le Castelet, in Cannes. The fourteen-bedroom villa, surrounded by lush gardens, olive trees, and vineyards, consisted of several buildings. She listed it for sale in 2020, for €6 million. In 1958, she bought a second property called La Madrague, located in Saint-Tropez, for 24 million francs, where she lived until her death in 2025.

Politics and legal issues