Brigitte Bardot: Tribute to a Woman Who Dared Say What Everyone Thinks
"Your arrogance, your cowardice make you a despicable puppet, a sorry doormat." — Brigitte Bardot to Emmanuel Macron, 2023
Table of Contents
- A Free Woman: Neither Feminist Nor Submissive
- On MeToo: "Hypocritical, Ridiculous, Pointless"
- On Wokism: "A Ridiculous Fad"
- Letters to Presidents: 50 Years of Straight Talk
- The Record: When Speaking Loudly Actually Changes Things
- The Foundation: Her Concrete Legacy
- The Controversies: The Price of Free Speech
- Death: December 28, 2025
- Conclusion: The Courage of a Bygone Era
- Official Sources
On December 28, 2025, France lost one of its last great outspoken voices. Brigitte Bardot passed away at 91 in her villa La Madrague in Saint-Tropez, taking with her a freedom of expression that has become rare in the age of political correctness.
Whether you loved her or hated her, BB had a quality that many secretly envied: she said what she thought. Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Fearless of the consequences.
On presidents, on feminism, on MeToo, on wokism — Brigitte Bardot never bowed to the pressure of right-thinking conformity. This article pays tribute to her, not by canonizing her, but by recalling her words exactly as she spoke them.
A Free Woman: Neither Feminist Nor Submissive
Simone de Beauvoir saw her as a feminist icon, but BB always rejected that label.
The Bardot Paradox
History's irony: Simone de Beauvoir herself had written an essay titled "Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome", seeing in BB a symbol of female emancipation in the 1960s.
But Bardot always rejected that label.
"Women's emancipation has nothing to do with me. I lived as I pleased and I continue to do so, but I am at once free and dependent on the man I love." — Paris Match, August 19, 2014
Source: Dico-Citations
On Feminism (1973)
In a televised debate with Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, BB was already expressing her reluctance:
"I believe that by trying too hard to liberate themselves, women will become increasingly unhappy."
"Men are men. Women should be gentle. A woman should set the mood of a home, its warmth. She is the beauty, the softness. She will lose her feminine virtues by going to work."
Source: Terrafemina
On the MLF (Women's Liberation Movement)
"The Women's Liberation Movement is comical and idiotic."
May 2025 (Final BFMTV Interview)
At 90 years old, she had not changed her mind:
"Feminism is not my thing. I happen to like men."
Source: Orange Actu
On Modern Feminism (JDD)
"Modern feminism is a form of genuine slavery."
Source: Le JDD
On MeToo: "Hypocritical, Ridiculous, Pointless"
Many play the tease then point the finger: BB dared say what others were thinking quietly.
In 2018, as the #MeToo movement was sweeping across Hollywood and the world, Brigitte Bardot took the completely opposite stance.
The Paris Match Interview (2018)
"Regarding actresses, and not women in general, it is, in the vast majority of cases, hypocritical, ridiculous, and pointless."
"There are many actresses who play the tease with producers in order to land a role. Then, so that people will talk about them, they come and say they were harassed. In reality, rather than helping them, it harms them."
On Her Personal Experience
"As for me, I was never raped, never. Either I was consenting!"
"I found it charming when someone told me I was beautiful or that I had a lovely little backside."
Sources: FranceSoir, Variety
Her Public Support
Faithful to her convictions, she publicly supported Gerard Depardieu, Nicolas Bedos, and Roman Polanski in the face of the accusations against them.
On Wokism: "A Ridiculous Fad"
A fad born from the sick minds of our contemporaries who tarnish the sublime.
Full Quote
"Wokism is a ridiculous fad, a novelty born from the sick minds of our contemporaries who tarnish everything that is beautiful, pure, and true, in order to modernize and globalize the ancestral and traditional values that it would be sacrilegious to touch."
"I will not accept that anyone tarnish or ridicule the sublime."
Letters to Presidents: 50 Years of Straight Talk
Despicable puppet, sorry doormat: when BB wrote to Macron without holding back.
If BB dared speak this way in public, imagine her private letters to presidents. Spoiler: they were worse.
To Emmanuel Macron
December 2018: The "Christmas Miracle"
"I am asking you for a Christmas miracle for the animals."
Source: France 24
February 2019: Post-Elysee Meeting
BB recalled Macron's first words when they met:
"You're going to scold me!"
She had replied: Yes.
Source: Fondation Brigitte Bardot (PDF)
April 2022: "The Putin of Nature"
"You are the Putin of nature and animals, a bloodthirsty destroyer, despicable and despised."
April 2023: The "Assassination Letter"
The most famous one. At 88 years old, she had lost none of her fire.
The opening:
"I believe this letter, which I am sending you with all my contempt, will perhaps make you react and become aware of your uselessness and your cowardice."
On hunting:
"Five years later, yes I am scolding you because I am furious at your inaction, your cowardice, your contempt for the French people (who return the sentiment, it must be said)."
On horses exported to Japan:
"Instead of abolishing this abominable and revolting butchery once and for all, you accepted the profitable sacrilege of creating a new market with Japan by sending 1,000 horses per year to be turned into sushi."
On the government:
"You are a malevolent being, as are all your ministers — incompetents, the lot of them."
The legendary conclusion:
"Your arrogance, your cowardice, your ridiculous speeches, your total lack of empathy and authority make you a despicable puppet, a sorry doormat good only for mopping up the blood and death that it spreads across this country whose lights have gone out."
Sources: Orange Actu, FranceSoir
May 2025: The Final Fight
Seven months before her death, BB returned to BFMTV — her first appearance in 11 years — to send an open letter accompanied by a hearing aid as a symbolic gesture to Macron:
"I am going to war! I want the abolition of stag hunting with hounds. It is a horrific thing."
"We are the last country in Europe, along with Ireland, to practice this despicable activity."
Sources: L'Avenir, 20 Minutes Suisse
The Record: When Speaking Loudly Actually Changes Things
Seal fur, ivory, crash-test animals: BB won concrete battles by speaking loudly.
Her Concrete Victories
| Victory | Year | How |
|---|---|---|
| Widespread adoption of the captive bolt gun for slaughter | 1972 | Showed up at the minister's office with 3 bolt guns |
| Ban on seal fur imports (France) | 1977 | One photo in Paris Match |
| EU ban on seal products | 1983 | Relentless lobbying |
| International ivory trade ban | 1989 | International pressure campaign |
| End of live animals in crash tests | 1990s | Media campaign |
What She Never Achieved
| Demand | Status |
|---|---|
| Secretary of State for animal welfare | Refused since Mitterrand |
| Abolition of stag hunting with hounds | Refused |
| Abolition of bullfighting | Refused |
| End of ritual slaughter without stunning | Refused |
| End of horse meat consumption | Refused |
The Foundation: Her Concrete Legacy
Eleven thousand two hundred animals sheltered, three hundred employees, never a single euthanasia.
Beyond her words, BB built something tangible.
The Numbers (2025)
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Animals sheltered | 11,200+ |
| Refuges in France | 4 |
| Employees | 300 |
| Donors | 70,000 |
| Countries of intervention | 70 |
| Cats sterilized per year | 12,000+ |
Founding principle: No euthanasia. All animals live freely until their natural death.
Sources: Fondation Brigitte Bardot, France Info
The Controversies: The Price of Free Speech
Six convictions, forty-nine thousand euros in fines: she paid without ever retracting.
BB paid the price for her candor. Six convictions for incitement to racial hatred between 1997 and 2021.
| Year | Reason | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Comments on "Muslim foreign overpopulation" | 1,500 euros |
| 2000 | Repeat offense | 3,000 euros |
| 2004 | Book "A Cry in the Silence" | 4,500 euros |
| 2004 | Repeat offense | 5,000 euros |
| 2008 | Letter to Sarkozy about Eid al-Adha | 15,000 euros |
| 2021 | Comments about people from Reunion Island | 20,000 euros |
Total: 49,000 euros — which she paid without ever retracting a single word.
Her Response
"I have never asked anyone to be racist and I do not believe I harbor any racial hatred." — "Larmes de combat" (Tears of Battle), 2018
Sources: France Bleu, France Info, LICRA
Death: December 28, 2025
She passed in her sleep at ninety-one: the international press salutes a legend.
Brigitte Bardot passed away in her sleep, at La Madrague, surrounded by her husband Bernard d'Ormale.
The International Press
- The Guardian: "France's most sensational cultural export"
- Daily Telegraph: "A legend of the century"
- Daily Mirror: "Farewell to La Belle Bardot"
The National Tribute Debate
Eric Ciotti called for a national tribute. The left opposed it on the grounds of her convictions.
Ironically, this is exactly the kind of controversy BB would have loved to provoke.
Sources: CNEWS, France Info
Conclusion: The Courage of a Bygone Era
Brigitte Bardot embodied something our era has lost: the right to say what you think, even if it shocks, even if it means paying fines, even if it means being ostracized.
You can disagree with everything she said. You can call her racist, reactionary, out of touch. But you cannot take one thing away from her: she had guts.
At a time when every word is weighed, when every opinion is run through the filter of social acceptability, when "cancel culture" makes even the boldest tremble, BB reminded us that you can still tell the powerful to go to hell.
Her letters to Macron — "despicable puppet", "sorry doormat" — will remain in history as examples of what French freedom of expression once was.
Her final fight — the abolition of stag hunting with hounds — remains unfinished. France remains, alongside Ireland, the only country in Europe to allow this practice.
But at least she went out fighting. Right to the very end.
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Official Sources
Foundation and Institutions
National Press
International Press
Associations
Article written on January 1, 2026. A tribute to a woman who was never afraid to say what she thought — whether you agreed with her or not.