Brigitte Bardot’s funeral draws crowds to small French town

Brigitte Bardot’s funeral took place Wednesday with a private service and public tribute in Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring from cinema at the height of her fame.

The animal rights activist and far-right activist died on December 28 at the age of 91 at her home in the south of France.

She died of cancer after undergoing two operations, said her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, in an interview with Paris Match magazine published Tuesday evening. “Until the end, she was aware and concerned about the fate of the animals,” he said.

Locals and admirers cheered the funeral procession as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the world’s most photographed women and a defining movie siren of the 1960s, was carried through the city’s narrow streets.

The service began with a recording of Maria Callas singing Hail Mary at Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Catholic Church in the presence of Bardot’s husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals.

“The sadness is overwhelming, and so is the pain,” said Max Guazzini, a friend and secretary general of his foundation, addressing the mourners.

Hundreds of people gathered in the small town to watch the farewells on large screens installed at the port and in two squares.

Bardot had long called Saint-Tropez her refuge from the fame that once made her a household name. She was buried “in the strictest privacy” in a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

The cemetery is also the resting place of several cultural figures, including filmmaker Roger Vadim, Bardot’s first husband, who directed her landmark film. And God created womana role that made her a global star.

Bardot settled into her seaside villa, La Madrague, decades ago and retired from filmmaking in 1973 at the age of 39, during an international career that spanned more than two dozen films.

WATCH | Archive video of Brigitte Bardot during the seal hunt in Newfoundland in 1977:

Brigitte Bardot visits the seal hunt in Newfoundland

The star of French cinema from the 1960s traveled to Newfoundland in 1977 to witness the seal hunt in person.

Controversy later in life

Although she retired from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure through decades of animal rights activism and ties to far-right politics.

Her opposition to the seal hunt in Newfoundland has been criticized for neglecting indigenous ways of life, and it was convicted and fined five times by French courts for inciting racial hatred, in connection with incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious festivals.

“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things are moving… my distress takes over,” Bardot told the Associated Press when asked about his beliefs in racial hatred and his opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter.