Sex symbol and icon Brigitte Bardot dies: cause of death and why she was famous

Brigitte Bardot, a legend of French and world cinema and an erotic icon of the 1950s and 1960s, died on Saturday at the age of 91. This follows the news that in October she had been rushed to hospital with a health scare.

After the death of Alain Delon in 2024, Bardot had been the last great veteran figure of French cinema still alive, having appeared in films such as And God Created Woman (1956), The Truth (1960) and Contempt (1963).

“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation.”

She also enjoyed a significant music career, achieving particular popularity with the song Je t’aime… moi non plus, which she recorded alongside her then lover, the fellow Frenchman Serge Gainsbourg.

Was Brigitte Bardot a feminist?

Ironically, despite her status as a female icon, Bardot never showed much interest in following feminist doctrine – quite the opposite, in fact. On more than one occasion she said she had no interest in feminism at all, referring to feminists as “hysterical women who exaggerated problems.”

Likewise, in 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, she said that many who claimed to have been affected were simply seeking publicity and attention in the media.

What did Brigitte Bardot believe in?

The rights she did defend, and with particular passion, were those of animals. In the 1970s she left the film industry and devoted herself entirely to her foundation. “Animals became my reason for living,” she said at the time.

Among the most high-profile of her actions was a 1975 trip to Canada to campaign against seal hunting, but her foundation was involved in many other initiatives: rescuing abandoned or abused animals, funding shelters and surgeries, taking part in efforts to combat illegal wildlife trafficking, and protesting against bullfighting. She also participated in animal rescues in war zones, including Iraq, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia.

RIP Brigitte.

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