page_title: Brigitte Bardot
section_title: Politics and legal issues
hierarchical_section_title: Brigitte Bardot / Personal life / Politics and legal issues
caption_attribution_description: Português: Brigitte Bardot encontra o Papa João Paulo II em Roma. Setembro de 1995. English: Brigitte Bardot and Pope John Paul II in Rome, 1995.
context_page_description: Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress and singer, and animal rights activist. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated personae with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s. Although she withdrew from the entertainment industry in 1973, she remains a major popular culture icon.
  Born and raised in Paris, Bardot was an aspiring ballerina in her early life. She started her acting career in 1952. She achieved international recognition in 1957 for her role in the controversial And God Created Woman, and also caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay The Lolita Syndrome, which described her as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France. Bardot later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Le Mépris. For her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film Viva Maria! she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress.
  Bardot retired from the entertainment industry in 1973.
context_section_description: Bardot expressed support for President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. Her husband Bernard d'Ormale is a former adviser of the National Front (now National Rally), the main far-right party in France, known for its nationalist and conservative beliefs.
  
  In her 1999 book Le Carré de Pluton ("Pluto's Square"), Bardot criticizes the procedure used in the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Additionally, in a section in the book entitled, "Open Letter to My Lost France", Bardot writes that "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims". For this comment, a French court fined her 30,000 francs (€6,000 in 2019 euros) in June 2000. She had been fined in 1997 for the original publication of this open letter in Le Figaro and again in 1998 for making similar remarks.
  In her 2003 book, Un cri dans le silence (A Scream in the Silence), she contrasted her close gay friends with today's homosexuals, who "jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly heteros put them through" and said some contemporary homosexuals behave like "fairground freaks". In her own defence, Bardot wrote in a letter to a French gay magazine: "Apart from my husband — who maybe will cross over one day as well — I am entirely surrounded by homos. For years, they have been my support, my friends, my adopted children, my confidants."
  In her book she wrote about issues such as racial mixing, immigration, the role of women in politics, and Islam. The book also contained a section attacking what she called the mixing of genes and praised previous generations who, she said, had given their lives to push out invaders.
  On 10 June 2004, Bardot was convicted for a fourth time by a French court for inciting racial hatred and fined €5,000. Bardot denied the racial hatred charge and apologized in court, saying: "I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody. It is not in my character."
  In 2008, Bardot was convicted of inciting racial/religious hatred in regard to a letter she wrote, a copy of which she sent to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister of France. The letter stated her objections to Muslims in France ritually slaughtering sheep by slitting their throats without anesthetizing them first. She also said, in reference to Muslims, that she was "fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its habits". The trial concluded on 3 June 2008, with a conviction and fine of €15,000, the largest of her fines to date. The prosecutor stated she was tired of charging Bardot with offences related to racial hatred.
  During the 2008 United States presidential election, she branded the Republican Party vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as "stupid" and a "disgrace to women". She criticized the former governor of Alaska for her stance on global warming and gun control. She was also offended by Palin's support for Arctic oil exploration and by her lack of consideration in protecting polar bears.
  On 13 August 2010, Bardot lashed out at director Kyle Newman regarding his plan to make a biographical film on her life. She told him, "Wait until I'm dead before you make a movie about my life!" otherwise "sparks will fly".
  Bardot expressed support for Marine le Pen, leader of the National Front (National Rally), calling her "the Joan of Arc of the 21st century". She endorsed Le Pen in the 2017 French presidential election.
caption: Bardot and John Paul II in Rome, 1995
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