Brigitte Bardot, the French screen legend who transformed Saint-Tropez from a sleepy fishing port into a global byword for glamour and rebellion, has died aged 91, her foundation has confirmed.
Born in Paris in 1934, Bardot became an international sensation with And God Created Woman in 1956, a film that scandalised audiences and permanently altered the cultural geography of the French Riviera. Its success placed Saint-Tropez at the centre of post-war celebrity culture, drawing artists, aristocrats and the Monaco-based elite into Bardot’s orbit.
Although she later retreated from cinema, Bardot remained a fixture of Riviera mythology. She spent most of her adult life at La Madrague, her secluded home above Saint-Tropez, fiercely guarding her privacy while becoming one of the region’s most recognisable figures. Her presence helped cement the Côte d’Azur — from Saint-Tropez to nearby Monaco — as a single, glittering cultural ecosystem where film stars, royalty and wealth converged.
Monaco, long a magnet for Europe’s elite, formed part of the same social and political landscape Bardot came to embody. While she avoided official roles, her activism and celebrity influence echoed through Riviera power circles, overlapping with Monaco-based philanthropy and high-profile animal-welfare campaigns that dominated the region’s public life from the 1970s onwards.
Bardot retired from acting in 1973 and devoted herself to animal rights, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986. Her campaigning contributed to legislative change in Europe, though her later years were marred by repeated convictions for inciting racial hatred, a record that complicated her legacy both in France and abroad.
She died at her home in Saint-Tropez. No cause of death has been announced. Tributes have poured in from across France and beyond, marking the passing of a woman whose image came to define the modern Riviera.
