French legendary actress Brigitte Bardot dies at 91

Brigitte Bardot, one of the world's biggest stars of cinema, has died.

She was 91 and had been in hospital in the southern French city of Toulon since November.

In a statement the Brigitte Bardot Foundation announced her death with "immense sadness", describing her as a "world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation."

Known for her enormous impact on the silver screen in the 1950s, "BB" as she was widely called in France, was an essential ingredient in French culture and soon became an icon after her first role in Le Trou Normand (1952)

From bourgeois Parisian beginnings, she set her heart of becoming a singer and dancer and was picked out as a model at the age of 15.

Two more films followed in 1952 and she also got married at the same time to the film director Roger Vadim. A year later Bardot took Hollywood and the United States by storm, and her status as a teenage "sex-kitten" was firmly established.

When Bardot starred in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman”, directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.

She went on to feature in a total of 28 films over two decades and become a symbole of women's sexual liberation.

Animal rights activist

Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed sending monkeys into space.

“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”

Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honour, France's top accolade.

In a post on X, the French President Emmanuel Macron said: "Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne—Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. A French existence, a universal radiance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century."

Our journalists are working on this breaking news story and will update it throughout the day.