Brigitte Bardot, the iconic cinema star and devoted animal rights activist, will be laid to rest next week in Saint-Tropez, the glamorous French Riviera resort she helped make famous and where she resided for over half a century.
The divisive figure passed away on Sunday at the age of 91 at her home in southern France.
A ceremony is scheduled for 7 January at the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Catholic Church. The event will be broadcast on two large screens at the port and in the central Place des Lices, Saint-Tropez town hall confirmed in a statement on Monday, allowing her many admirers to participate.
Her burial will then proceed “in the strictest privacy” at a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, followed by a public homage for fans at a nearby location.
The town hall’s statement underscored Bardot’s profound connection to the area: “Brigitte Bardot will forever be associated with Saint-Tropez, of which she was the most dazzling ambassador. Through her presence, personality and aura, she marked the history of our town.”
The star had settled into her Riviera villa, La Madrague, in Saint-Tropez, retiring from film in 1973 at 39. The ‘marine cemetery’, where her parents are interred, is also the final resting place for other notable figures, including her first husband, filmmaker Roger Vadim.
Her younger sister, Marie-Jeanne Bardot, known as Mijanou, shared a poignant Facebook post featuring a photograph of Brigitte at 12, accompanied by a message honouring “the one I adored more than anything.”
Mijanou expressed hope that Bardot now “knows whether our beloved pets are waiting for us on the other side. Let her not be afraid, and let her instead be in the love and joy of reuniting with them all.”
Following her retirement from acting in the 1970s, the And God Created Women star dedicated her life to animal welfare activism and became deeply involved in right-wing politics.
She was a fervent supporter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Rally party, and his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who’s currently appealing a five-year ban from running for political office after she was found guilty of embezzling funds from the European Parliament.
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After news of Bardot’s death broke, Marine hailed her as “an exceptional woman”. “A woman who chose to break with an incredible career to devote herself to the animals she defended until her last breath with inexhaustible energy and love,” the disgraced politician wrote. “She was incredibly French: free, untamable, whole. She will be greatly missed by us.”
Bardot was also fined and convicted five times by French courts for inciting racial hatred and discrimination toward Islam and Réunion islanders.
In one of her final interviews, conducted in May 2025 on French television, she disparaged the #MeToo movement, defended Gérard Depardieu against sexual assault allegations, and declared: “Feminism isn’t my thing. I like guys.”
