ACTOR
Brigitte Bardot
45 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (45)
- #001
When she discovered she had breast cancer, Bardot initially refused treatment, believing it was her fate. It was her actress friend Marina Vlady who flew to her home in Saint Tropez and convinced her to begin treatment.
- #002
Bardot took a handful of tranquilizers, washed them down with red wine and then went to Les Canoubiers beach, where she had gone surfing. She was taken to the nearby L'Oasis clinic, where her stomach was pumped before she was released that evening.
- #003
Bardot is the mother of Nicolas-Jacques Charrier (born 11 January 1960), who was raised by his father's family and had no contact with Bardot until adulthood. In 1997 Nicolas successfully sued Brigitte over statements in her memoirs in which she referred to her son as a "tumor" and said she "preferred to give birth to a little dog." (She also revealed that she repeatedly punched herself in the stomach in order to abort the child and asked her doctor for morphine.) Nicolas and Jacques Charrier claimed that the book's graphic details about marital discord and the rejection of the child constituted an offense. Invasion of privacy is a civil offense in France. A French court ordered Bardot to pay 17,000 Euros in damages.
- #004
In 1967 Serge Gainsbourg wrote and recorded his most notable song, "Je t'aime… moi non plus," with Bardot, but Gainsbourg begged her not to release their recording, so Jane Birkin replaced her vocals a year later.
- #005
Bardot has two grandchildren from the marriage of her estranged son Nicolas to Anne-Line Bjerkan (the daughter of a Norwegian diplomat): Anna (born 1985) and Thea (born 1990). As of 2009 Brigitte had not seen her son for more than ten years and had no contact with her grandchildren; she had met them only once, in 1992, during a family gathering arranged by her husband Bernard d'Ormale. Brigitte became a great-grandmother when Anna gave birth to a girl in February 2014.
- #006
Bardot once castrated a neighbor's donkey.
- #007
In 1973, at the age of 39, Bardot retired from acting, and since then she has devoted herself to various animal rights causes while remaining a major pop culture icon.
- #008
Bardot is a breast cancer survivor.
- #009
On the set of the film Please, Not Now! (1961), directed by her former husband Roger Vadim, Bardot met his new girlfriend Catherine Deneuve. Of Deneuve she said: "… a 17-year-old brunette lingered behind Vadim, dressed like me [and] with her hair done like mine. Her name was Catherine Deneuve. She had an insufferable, naive air about her at the time." One night, while shooting in the high mountains, the crew got stuck and everyone slept in one room. Among the crew were Bardot, Vadim, Mireille Darc and Deneuve.
- #010
Bardot took dance lessons from the age of five, and at 13 one of her classmates in dance class was Leslie Caron.
- #011
Bardot has been described as anti-Muslim and anti-gay because of her support for the far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen.
- #012
Her looks inspired several generations of voluptuous blonde models dubbed "baby Bardots," such as the German supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Anna Ewers, the Dutch models Lara Stone, Daphne Groeneveld and Doutzen Kroes, and the British model Georgia Jagger.
- #013
Bardot made the choucroute (sauerkraut) hairstyle fashionable.
- #014
Bardot is a good friend of the sex siren Claudia Cardinale; they appeared together in The Legend of Frenchie King (1971).
- #015
As of 2017, Brigitte (83) and her husband Bernard d'Ormale (76) both still smoked.
- #016
Bardot is one of the world's leading animal rights activists and the president of the Foundation Brigitte Bardot, a foundation dedicated to animal rights.
- #017
In 1985 Bardot was awarded the French Legion of Honour, but she refused to accept it.
- #018
Between her marriages and cohabitations, Bardot also had occasional relationships with Warren Beatty, Gilbert Bécaud, Sacha Distel, Nino Ferrer, Sami Frey, Serge Gainsbourg, John Gilmore, Jimi Hendrix, Christian Kalt, Luigi Rizzi, Michael Sarne and Laurent Vergez.
- #019
The Brazilian city of Búzios erected a statue of Brigitte Bardot in honor of her role in the city's rise in popularity.
- #020
Brigitte Bardot lived with Jean-Louis Trintignant from 1956 to 1958, Bob Zagury from 1963 to 1965, Patrick Gilles from 1968 to 1971, Jean Blaise from 1975 to 1979, and Allain Bougrain-Dubourg from 1980 to 1985.
- #021
Empire magazine named Brigitte Bardot one of the 100 sexiest stars in cinema history, ranking her 9th.
- #022
Time magazine wrote of Bardot: "… the princess of pouting, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, innocent sexuality that brought a brand-new audience to French films."
- #023
Brigitte Bardot founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She initially financed it by auctioning off her personal belongings.
- #024
Brigitte Bardot is threatening to sue the St. Tropez boutique that sells products bearing her face.
- #025
Brigitte Bardot's husband, Bernard d'Ormale, is a wealthy industrialist and a supporter of the far-right French nationalist party Front National.
- #026
Brigitte Bardot is not a natural blonde; her natural hair color is light brown.
- #027
Brigitte Bardot and her husband Bernard d'Ormale married in a small town outside Oslo, Norway, where his son lives with his family.
- #028
Brigitte Bardot ultimately turned down the lead role in Barbarella (1968), which went to Jane Fonda.
- #029
Brigitte Bardot has homes in Saint-Tropez, Yvelines and Paris.
- #030
Brigitte Bardot does not approve of miscegenation.
- #031
In her childhood, Brigitte Bardot suffered from amblyopia, which caused reduced vision in her left eye.
- #032
Brigitte Bardot is the sister of Mijanou Bardot. Mijanou has been married to Patrick Bauchau since 1962 and has a daughter named Camille.
- #033
Brigitte Bardot ranked 75th on Men's Health's list of the 100 Hottest Women of All Time.
- #034
Brigitte Bardot recorded a special voice performance for the classic "Velveteen Rabbit," produced by Pierre Patrick for the Connecticut Family Theatre.
- #035
Brigitte Bardot was born to Louis Bardot (1896-1975), nicknamed Pilou, and Ann-Marie Mucel (1912-1978), nicknamed Toty. Pilou graduated from an engineering school to join the family business producing liquid air and acetylene, while Toty trained in theater and dance as a young woman; Pilou wrote poetry in his notebook and published several volumes.
- #036
Brigitte Bardot was parodied by Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live (1975).
- #037
Brigitte Bardot shares her birthday with Marcello Mastroianni, her co-star in A Very Private Affair (1962).
- #038
The song "Brigitte Bardot," dedicated to her by Turkish singer Darío Moreno, premiered in 1961.
- #039
She is the namesake of the Manolo Blahnik BB pump.
- #040
In 2015, she was inducted into the Hair Fan's Hall of Fame.
- #041
She was ultimately considered for the role of Lucrezia Borgia in the film Lucrezia (1968), a role that was played by Olga Schoberová.
- #042
She is a distant relative by marriage of British conservative journalist Barbara Amiel, who wrote an article about Bardot for Maclean's magazine in 1989. Amiel's fourth ex-husband, Canadian cable TV mogul David R. Graham, was previously married to Catherine Schneider, who had earlier been married to Bardot's first ex-husband, Roger Vadim.
- #043
She is the former sister-in-law of Hélène Plemiannikov.
- #044
Olga Horstig-Primuz was her manager for many years.
- #045
The song "Brigitte Bardot" premiered in 1962, performed by Brazilian songwriter and journalist Miguel Gustavo.
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