While Brigitte Bardot does not wish to speak about her state of health, the tabloids claimed that she had been hospitalized a few days ago. Her husband declined to confirm and comment on these allegations.
Brigitte Bardot’s health has been the subject of media concerns since Tuesday, May 2. The cause ? The intervention of one of the star’s biographers, Yves Bigot, on Cyril Hanouna’s show. The latter was pressed by the host to give news of the actress, while rumors of a hospitalization had been broadcast in the people newspaper “France Dimanche”, known to twist the truth every week on the news of celebrities, in order to sell as much paper as possible.
Said magazine had indicated that Brigitte Bardot had been hospitalized a few weeks ago for “serious respiratory failure”. Yves Bigot contacted Brigitte Bardot’s husband on May 2, and read the SMS he received on the air. “Don’t worry, I found Brigitte who had fled to the Cayman Islands with Pierre Palmade. The tabloid press still ignores it”, he replied, meaning quite clearly, with irony, that one had to be wary of this type of press. The man who shares life with Brigitte Bardot has not given the slightest indication of the supposed hospitalization of his companion; his sarcasm on the sensational press, however, let it be understood that he regretted this unhealthy curiosity.
A form of rejection, in short, which did not prevent the columnists of TPMP from speculating on the way in which Brigitte Bardot takes care of her health. One of them, even advancing, without being able to give any tangible element, that having “a strong head”, she “escaped from the hospital not to stay there”.
No information from the actress, no information from a relative of the former actress and singer has been provided since the publication of these rumors, which even mentioned treatment “in intensive care” in a hospital in Toulon.
Biography of Brigitte Bardot – Born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, the French actress Brigitte Bardot made her mark from the 1950s and 1960s. Having become a sex symbol, she was the incarnation of the post-war free woman and also a devoted activist for the animal cause, becoming a role model for many young women. However, she is gradually becoming a controversial figure, through her opinions and words which often incite hatred. However, his popularity is not affected so much.
Brigitte Bardot comes from a highly bourgeois and strict Catholic family. Her father owns Usines Bardot and her mother is an artist. She suffers from amblyopia which prevents her from seeing well in her left eye. During her childhood, she was raised in a rigid Catholic upbringing and studied at the Institut de la Tour in Paris. She has a younger sister, Marie-Jeanne, called Mijanou, from whom she suffers from being in the shadows. Passionate about classical dance, she entered the Paris Conservatory in 1949. The same year, she was hired by Hélène Lazareff (founder of “Elle”) and introduced “junior” fashion.
Director Marc Allégret discovers her this way, thanks to a photo appearing in the May 8, 1950 issue of the magazine. One of her grandfathers supports her in her project to become an actress, unlike her parents. It is also thanks to the director that she meets Roger Vadim, then his assistant. They fall in love but Bardot’s parents oppose this union. Filled with great sadness, she attempts suicide. Her parents find her in time and she convinces her father to marry Vadim, he accepts but only when she turns 18.
The film with Allégret is ultimately not made. However, director Jean Boyer offered him a role in his film “Le Trou normand” alongside Bourvil. Brigitte Bardot then plays in “Manina, the girl without veils” by Willy Rozier. Then, she took her first steps on stage thanks to André Barsacq and Dany Robin in the play “L’invitation au château” by Jean Anouilh, at the Théâtre de l’Atelier. Without experience, she finds herself useless but Anouilh reassures her and the reviews are good. Subsequently, she obtained a role in “Si Versailles m’tait conté …” by Sacha Guitry in 1954 and went to tour Italy, where she had a role in “Hélène de Troie” by Robert Wise. She returned to France and played a small role in “Les grandes Manoeuvres” alongside Gérard Philipe and Michèle Morgan in 1955, by René Clair. She experienced a commercial failure with the film “En effleurant la marguerite” by Marc Allégret. Finally, she returned to Rome for a while to shoot in “Les Weeks-ends de Néron”.
In 1956, Brigitte Bardot had the main role in Roger Vadim’s film “And God… created woman”. Thanks to this film, she becomes a sex symbol and becomes a legend in the world of cinema. Her role is that of a free woman, of her time and who has no taboos. When it was released, some scenes were censored and the results were unconvincing for French audiences. On the other hand, he made a triumph in the United States, and it is thanks to this that he subsequently obtained success in France. Proposals are pouring in for Bardot, which allows her to have a string of successes, and also to be presented to Queen Elizabeth II. In fact, she turns in “Une Parisienne” by Michel Boisrond, “Les Jewelers of the moonlight” by Roger Vadim and “In case of misfortune” by Claude Autant-Lara. For the latter, she plays alongside Jean Gabin and Edwige Feuillère. She will be so impressed to play with these great actors that she will forget her text. Jean Gabin then voluntarily makes a mistake in a hold, which relaxes Bardot and thus allows him to play. In 1958, she was the highest paid actress in French cinema. In 1959, she launched the fashion for long blond hair, checkered gingham and ballet flats, thanks to the success of the film “Babette s’en va-t-en guerre”. Raoul Levy and Henri-Georges Clouzot offer him the film “The Truth”. She accepts but the filming proves to be very difficult for her, being roughed up by Clouzot. In her book “Initiales B.B.: memoirs”, she reveals in particular that the director gave her two powerful sleeping pills, making her believe it was aspirin, to play a scene. She woke up after 48 hours, however she finds the scene excellent. Clouzot puts her in condition every day in a cruel atmosphere, which causes depression in her. His mother therefore sent him to Menton with her friend Mercedes.
Subsequently, Brigitte Bardot did a series of films without much enthusiasm: “Private Life” by Louis Malle, “The Rest of the Warrior” by Roger Vadim, “The Contempt” by Jean-Luc Godard and an appearance in a film that paid homage to him. “Dear Bridget”. In 1965, she shot the western “Viva Maria!” by Louis Malle, with Jeanne Moreau. Filmed in Mexico, she is forced to do a big and long promotion and thus manages to eclipse her partner. The film was a success and received good reviews. She then refuses to be a James Bond girl in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” and initially refuses “Shalako” by Edward Dmytryk, with Sean Connery. Having little interest in the project, her agent convinces her to do it anyway. The film is a failure. After having played in “Les Femmes” by Jean Aurel and “L’Ours et la Poupee” by Michel Deville, she did not receive many offers and therefore agreed to shoot in “Les Novices”, alongside Annie Girardot. She then plays with Lino Ventura in “Boulevard du rhum” by Robert Enrico and then with Claudia Cardinale in “Les Pétroleuses”. Both films met with success, but she was indifferent to them. In the continuity of “And God… created woman”, Roger Vadim offers him “Don Juan 73”. Not liking the film, she plays it reluctantly. In 1973, Nina Companeez’s “The Very Good and Very Joyful Story of Colinot trousse-chemise” was her last film. Indeed, it is with this one that she decides to stop the cinema definitively.
Brigitte Bardot started singing in 1962. One of her most famous songs when she started out was “La Madrague”. Written by Jean-Max Rivière and composed by Gérard Bourgeois, it is inspired by the property of the same name of the actress, which is located in Saint-Tropez. Bardot performed it for the first time on French television in the program “Le Palmarès des chansons – Spécial Dalida”, on June 8, 1967. The song also has a clip, which was shot on his property. The song was covered in particular by Laurent Voulzy in his album “La Septième Vague” in 2006, by Camélia Jordana in 2009 in the show “Nouvelle Star” and by Angèle in 2018.
In 1967-1968, Brigitte Bardot collaborated in music with Serge Gainsbourg. First linked by an artistic complicity, their collaboration turns into a relationship, the actress becoming the singer’s muse. They recorded several songs together: “Je t’aime… moi non plus”, “Comic strip”, “Everybody Loves My Baby” and “Bonnie and Clyde”. Married at the time to Gunter Sachs, Bardot does not want her extramarital affair with Gainsbourg to trigger a worldwide scandal. She therefore asks the singer not to release the song “Je t’aime… moi non plus” but rather “Bonnie and Clyde”. “Initials B.B”, the song dedicated to him by Gainsbourg, marks their separation.
After ending her acting career, Brigitte Bardot devoted herself entirely to the cause of animals. She also began before the end of her career, in 1964, by revolting against chisel hammering, used to slaughter animals. This is where the “pistol of Brigitte Bardot” appears, which allows the instantaneous death of the animal, without it feeling pain. She is also the spokesperson for the SPA. From 1976, she began a major international campaign to denounce the seal hunt, the main fight she led throughout her life. She disputes the method used to kill them, that is to say a blow with a club, then they are dismembered, sometimes still being alive. His fight for seals is not in vain, since on March 15, 1977, French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing banned the import of sealskins into France. On March 20, 1977, she rebelled against Canada, denouncing the hunting of seal pups for their fur, then on March 28, 1983, the importation of the skins and furs of baby harp seals and hooded seal babies was prohibited by the European Economic Community, after the intervention of the actress at the Council of Europe. Thus the number of slaughtered seals decreased, dropping from 200,000 in 1981 to 20,000 in 1985. She revolted in March 1980 against the conditions under which horses were slaughtered and asked the French not to eat them anymore, since France was the second major consumer in Europe.
It was in 1986 that Brigitte Bardot created the “Brigitte Bardot Foundation” in Saint-Tropez. To do this, she sells her personal effects, jewelry, dresses, photos and autographed posters from when she was a star, so that her foundation is recognized as being of public utility. Then the struggles of the foundation are defined: captivity of wild animals, abandonment of pets, animal experiments, animal fights, transporting animals to slaughter, seal hunting, whaling , poaching, abuse of hunting, horse eating and fur. Its foundation growing in importance, it moved to Paris. Regarding her foundation and her fight, Bardot admits that she must include politics, in order to meet any head of state and ministers who can help her. She also founded an 8 hectare refuge in the Eure thanks to donations. In 2010, his foundation reached 60,000 donors.
In 1993, the Humane Society of the United States created the “Brigitte Bardot International Award” in Hollywood, which rewards the best non-American animal reportage. In 1994, she asked Jean-Paul Gaultier to stop using fur, the same for Sophia Loren and Catherine Deneuve. In 1996, she convinced the Minister of Agriculture Philippe Vasseur to ban the caudectomy of horses (tail cutting). In 2001, she was awarded the Peta Humanitarian Award by the PETA association, for her action in defense of animals. In 2002, she boycotted South Korean products, in order to protest against the consumption of dog and cat meat in South Korea. Moreover, on the same subject, in 2003 and 2006, a ban on the import and trade of dog and cat skins was introduced in France. This is followed by the ban on the import, export, sale and production of dog and cat skins by the European Union in 2007. Brigitte Bardot is also supported by Jacques Chirac who seizes the European Commission. Thus, in 2009, the import, export, transit and sale of products from the seal hunt is prohibited. She also attacked Canadian Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette and American politician Sarah Palin for encouraging the hunting of certain animals. She also threatened to take Russian nationality if the grace of two elephants suffering from tuberculosis from the Tête d’or park in Lyon is not granted.
In February 2019, she published a letter written to the President of the Republic questioning him on his “inaction”. The president of the foundation that bears her name and which defends animal rights urges Emmanuel Macron to commit more firmly to this cause: “Today, I ask you to start Marching for animals […] the French do not understand your inaction”. In this letter, Brigitte Bardot announces herself “more than disappointed by your immobility”. It refers to images shot in a slaughterhouse in Rodez in which we can see the reality of the killing of cattle without prior stunning. “Mr. President, it is no longer time to procrastinate on the issue, to pass the buck indefinitely, look at the images that we are unveiling today, they are scandalous, shocking, unworthy and unacceptable for a country like France who claims to be civilized”.
Although she is an icon of the 60s and popular for her fight for animals, Brigitte Bardot also has a controversial image because of some of her opinions, concerning Islam in France, interbreeding, immigration, ritual slaughter of animals and certain aspects of homosexuality. She has also been sentenced to fines on several occasions for incitement to racial hatred. Indeed, anti-racist associations were shocked by his remarks: “My country, France, my homeland, my land, is once again invaded, with the blessing of our successive governments, by a foreign overpopulation, especially Muslim, in which we swear allegiance. From this Islamic overflow, we have to submit to our reluctance, all the traditions. Year after year, we see mosques flourishing all over France while our church steeples are silent for lack of priests. . […] Will I be forced to flee my country that has become a bloody land to expatriate myself?”. She continues to castigate this religion in her book “A cry in silence”, released in 2003, saying in particular “against the Islamization of France”. She was fined 5,000 euros.
In this same book, Brigitte Bardot also gives her opinion on homosexuality, women, reality TV, transgender people, politicians and fast food. On homosexuality, despite her words, she defends herself from being homophobic, and qualifies homosexuals as her “lifelong friends”. On women, she believes that they cannot have places of power, in particular because they have nothing to do there, but that their power resides in their bodies and what they do with them. They also make scandalous remarks about illegal immigrants and interbreeding. In March 2019, she describes in an open letter the people of Reunion as “population of degenerates” because of their treatment of animals.
As for politics, Bardot defines herself as “conservative” and stresses that she is a “Frenchwoman of distant stock and proud of it”. Regarding her political orientation, she declared in Le Monde: “I judge politicians by the yardstick of what they propose for the animal cause. […] I had an insane hope when the National Front has made concrete proposals to reduce animal suffering. […] If tomorrow a communist takes up the proposals of my foundation, I applaud and I vote. But I will no longer give my support to anyone!”. It is considered all the same as linked to the National Front by its proximity to this Party.
On February 17, 2019, during a debate in the Saint-Aygulf motel in Fréjus in the Var, the yellow vests had the pleasure of receiving a distinguished guest in the person of Brigitte Bardot. The actress had already expressed her support for the protest movement. At the microphone of L’Obs, Brigitte Bardot explained this strong gesture of support: “They have a lot of courage”. She also explains that her presence was not important in itself but that “it’s just that it makes them happy”. 84-year-old Brigitte Bardot spoke for a few seconds to call on the “yellow vests” present in the room to continue the movement. “Don’t give up! Don’t give up! I fully support you!” This is not the first time that Brigitte Bardot has shown her support for the protest movement against the policies of President Emmanuel Macron. On November 28, 2018, a few days after the start of the yellow vest crisis, she already posted on Twitter a photograph of herself, thumbs up and wearing a yellow vest. The image was otherwise soberly captioned “With you!” At his feet, one of his dogs was also dressed in a yellow vest for the occasion.
At the age of 18, Brigitte Bardot was finally able to marry Roger Vadim on December 21, 1952. However, during the filming of “And God…created woman”, she fell in love with her partner Jean-Louis Trintignant. Each leaves their respective partner, then Trintignant leaves Bardot, thinking she has cheated on him. She then had an affair with Gilbert Bécaud then Sacha Distel. On the film “Babette goes to war”, she meets the actor Jacques Charrier and marries him on June 18, 1959. On the set of the film “La Vérité”, she begins a relationship with the actor Sami Frey. She divorced Jacques Charrier on January 30, 1963, but Sami Frey ended their relationship the summer of the same year. After an affair with Brazilian musician Bob Zagury, she married Gunter Sachs on July 14, 1966. But the couple had trouble getting along, and Sachs traveled a lot. In love with a “crazy love” for Gainsbourg, she has an extra-marital relationship with him. This relationship ends when she leaves for Spain for the filming of the film “Shalako”. In the meantime, she divorced Gunter Sachs in 1969. She then had relationships with Patrick Gilles, Christian Kalt, Laurent Vergez, Mirko Brozek and Allain Bougrain-Dubourg. In 1992, she met the industrialist Bernard d’Ormale, political adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen. They married on August 16, 1992.
About her son, Brigitte Bardot is not tender. The actress actually never wanted to be a mother, finding it frightening. During her relationship with Roger Vadim, she got pregnant twice and therefore decided to have an abortion. But the last one went wrong: she suffered a hemorrhage, then her heart stopped. She is saved by cardiac massage. In fact, traumatized by this event, she keeps the child when she becomes pregnant with Jacques Charrier. Nicolas Charrier was born on January 11, 1960. She talks about her son in her autobiography “Initiales B.B”, published in 1996 by Grasset editions. The words she uses, harsh and disturbing, cause a scandal. Indeed, she says of her pregnancy: “It was like a tumor that had fed on me, that I had carried in my swollen flesh, waiting only for the blessed moment when I was would finally get rid of it. The nightmare had reached its climax, I had to assume for life the object of my misfortune”. Following this, Nicolas sued him for “infringement of intrauterine intimacy” and won 100,000 francs from his mother. She then declares, in the documentary “And Brigitte created Bardot” that it was her son’s father who influenced him to turn against her.
Brigitte Bardot has made two suicide attempts. First when her parents refuse her marriage to Roger Vadim (as mentioned before), then a second, where she was very close to death. On September 28, 1960, her 26th birthday, she preferred to stay alone at home. She drinks a lot of champagne and at the same time swallows a large number of Immenoctal tablets. She then wanders into the surrounding countryside, settles in a sheepfold and opens her veins, surrounded by sheep. It is a child who discovers it. Taken to the hospital by an ambulance, the journey proves difficult because of the paparazzi, her suicide attempt will make the headlines. She wakes up 48 hours later and is followed by psychiatrists. She spent her convalescence in Saint-Tropez, with her mother, then had to honor her contracts.
In 1984, Brigitte Bardot discovers that she has breast cancer. Claiming it’s fate, she refuses to seek treatment. It is thanks to the influence of her friend Marina Vlady that she begins treatment and is finally cured. She returns to this cancer in the columns of Paris Match in January 2018: “I was all alone and I had decided to do only radiotherapy, and not this terrible chemo, so as not to lose my hair. It destroys the evil but also the good and you come out of it devastated. I see people who, after this ordeal, are rags. I would never want to go through this. This disease has forced me to come face to face with myself. And now, if I sometimes like solitude, I cannot nevertheless live alone”.