Brigitte Bardot, the iconic French sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s, spent years of her later life living as a recluse, battling depression and loneliness. The woman once celebrated as Europe’s most famous blonde bombshell was also known for repeatedly attempting to take her own life, a struggle that historians have extensively documented. Bardot was born in Paris to a wealthy family, raised in a luxurious mansion in the city’s upscale 16th arrondissement. Despite the material comfort, she later recalled her childhood as miserable, dominated by strict Catholic rules and rigid parental control.
She was not allowed to choose her own friends or clothes, and she once described feeling like a little marionette living under her father’s authority. One defining moment came when Bardot and her sister accidentally broke a prestigious family vase. As punishment, she endured 20 strokes of flogging, after which her father treated both girls like strangers. She later said that ordeal inspired her rebellious nature, and it permanently damaged her relationship with her parents.
During World War II, Bardot was confined indoors and spent her time listening to music and dancing. Her mother noticed her talent and enrolled her in ballet lessons at the esteemed Conservatoire de Paris under Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. But her striking beauty soon redirected her path when a magazine director offered her a modeling job at the age of 15. Bardot quickly rose to the magazine cover, and bigger offers followed, including film roles.
Her parents worried about the movie industry’s influence, but her grandfather defended her, reportedly saying that if she were to be morally ruined, cinema would not be the cause. She did not win her first film role, but she fell in love with the man who delivered the bad news: director Roger Vadim. Her parents strongly opposed the relationship, but Bardot defied them. She later wrote in her memoir that Vadim taught her about passion and seduction, opening her eyes to a world she had long desired.
When her father announced plans to send her to England to separate the couple, a heartbroken Bardot attempted suicide by putting her head in a burning oven. Her parents intervened in time, and they eventually accepted the relationship on the condition that the couple wait until Bardot turned 18 to marry. Vadim worked aggressively to make his girlfriend a star, introducing her to directors and writing scripts for her. She made her film debut in a minor role and soon gained scandalous attention with her appearance in “The Girl in the Bikini,” which helped create the legendary Bardot image.
In 1956, Vadim dyed her hair blonde and cast her in “And God Created Woman,” a film that skyrocketed her to international stardom. The movie was heavily criticized by the Catholic Church, which considered watching her films a mortal sin, but the controversy only drew more audiences to theaters. Analysts later credited Bardot’s success with loosening Hollywood’s strict censorship of sexually themed films. Bardot embraced her rebellious public image, famously telling fans that she gave a new image of how one should live, being fresh, blonde, free, not stuffy and not hung up.
She told women not to be little ladies in corsets, but to be free instead. While her fame soared, her personal life grew increasingly chaotic. She left Vadim and began an affair with her “And God Created Woman” co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant. She later blamed her husband for the affair, saying he had asked her to make the on-screen romance feel real for the sake of realism, adding that he taught her to be so free, and that his price to pay was losing her.
Bardot had no desire to become a mother, and she was 24 when she discovered she was pregnant. She was not planning to become a mother so soon and relied on advice from others to keep the baby and marry the child’s father, Jacques Charrier. Their wedding day became a scandalous catastrophe, which Bardot blamed on paparazzi crashing the event. After her son Nicolas was born, the gossip media turned its attention to her motherhood, spreading rumors that she did not know how to properly care for the child.
The condemnation was intense, and the campaign did not slow down. When she divorced Charrier, she also lost custody of her son, a double blow that pushed her into years of depression and loneliness. Bardot had once claimed to have had 100 lovers, both male and female, and her restless character kept the gossip media busy throughout her career. But behind the glamorous image, her life away from the screen was marked by deep emotional turmoil.
She later portrayed herself as someone who never pursued fame, but instead found herself straining under severe depression she never learned to handle. The woman described by one writer as a poor little rich girl lived a life full of contradictions, from her strict Catholic upbringing to her rebellious film roles and her later years as a hermit. Her beauty was so universal that a Ferrari model was named after her.
But despite the adoration of millions, her personal story remained one of heartbreak, isolation, and repeated suicide attempts.