Posters showing actor Brigitte Bardot hang at a security barrier near her home in Saint-Tropez, southern France, Sunday, December 28, 2025, after the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91. PHILIPPE MAGONI / AP
French film sensation Brigitte Bardot, a symbol of sexual liberation in the 1950s and 1960s who reinvented herself as an animal rights defender and embraced far-right views, died on Sunday, December 28, aged 91, her foundation said. She died in her Saint-Tropez home, La Madrague, on the French Riviera.
Tributes were immediately paid to the star, who was known as "BB" in her home country, with President Emmanuel Macron calling her a "legend" of the 20th century. "With her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials (BB), her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, and her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom," Macron wrote on X, referring to the Marianne image used as the female symbol of the French Republic.
His tribute, though, made no reference to Bardot's alignment with far-right views in her post-cinema years, which alienated many of her fans. Bardot was convicted five times for hate speech, mostly about Muslims, but also the inhabitants of the French island of La Réunion, whom she described as "savages."
