Inspecting claim about Brigitte Bardot's reported racial hatred convictions

On Dec. 28, 2025, the French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was considered one of the most quintessential sex symbols in film throughout her career, died at 91. 

Following her death, posts began appearing on social media questioning Bardot's legacy. According to the posts, Bardot had been convicted for inciting racial hatred six times throughout her life and supported far-right political figures in France.

Snopes readers wrote in and searched the site to determine whether the claim about Bardot's convictions was true. 

Though English-language sources consistently stated Bardot was convicted for inciting racial hatred six separate times, French-language sources offered conflicting information, reporting either five or six convictions. 

In sum, we found substantial reporting confirming at least five of Bardot's convictions, and strong — but not definitive — evidence supporting a sixth. However, we were unable to independently confirm the convictions through court records. As a result, we've left this claim unrated. 

The background

After Bardot retired from acting in 1973, she dedicated the rest of her life to advocating for the rights of animals. Some of the charges brought against Bardot were related to comments she made in the late 1990s and early 2000s during her animal advocacy work. 

According to People magazine, in 1992, Bardot married Bernard d'Ormale, a former adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the far-right National Front party. Bardot openly supported the party under the leadership of Le Pen's daughter Marine Le Pen, whom she called a modern "Joan of Arc," according to the French newspaper Le Monde. The party renamed itself the National Rally in 2018.

Though it was unclear exactly which laws Bardot was charged under, France has had some level of hate speech legislation since as early as 1881. According to Snopes' simplified translation of a passage from Article 24 of that law, the 1881 law on freedom of the press, those who provoke discrimination, hate or violence of a person or a group of people on the basis of their ethnicity, nationality, race or religion can be punished by up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to 45,000 euros. The next paragraph of the law also outlaws hate speech based on sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. 

In Bardot's case, our research found that English-language publications consistently agreed on the number of times she had been convicted: six. Those convictions were reported in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2021, according to various news media outlets. 

However, French-language coverage of Bardot's convictions introduced uncertainty. Le Monde and another French newspaper, Libération, had sometimes suggested or stated that Bardot was convicted only five times, though their reporting was not always consistent. 

While we couldn't definitively confirm why the discrepancy exists, we outline two possible explanations later in this story. We also contacted both French publications for comment and will update this story if we receive a response. 

Below, we examine the evidence for Bardot's convictions, beginning in 2021 and working backward to 1997. 

The convictions

The clearest evidence for a conviction against Bardot was in 2021. According to Vanity Fair, Le Figaro and Le Monde, a court fined Bardot 20,000 euros for a 2019 letter that called inhabitants of Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, "degenerate savages." Her spokesperson, Bruno Jacquelin, also was fined 4,000 euros for sharing the letter with media outlets. Vanity Fair and Le Monde both reported that it was or would be her sixth conviction, and Le Figaro did not mention her previous convictions.

In 2008, according to Time magazine, Reuters and Le Monde, a court fined Bardot 15,000 euros for a 2006 letter sent to then-Interior Minister (and future President) Nicholas Sarkozy and published in her foundation's newsletter. In the letter, Bardot reportedly described Muslims in France as a "population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts," and criticized animal sacrifices held during Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday that traditionally involves sacrificing a sheep, goat, ram, camel or cow, according to Britannica. All the outlets reported it was her fifth conviction. 

In 2004, according to Al Jazeera, The Guardian and Le Monde, a court fined Bardot 5,000 euros for anti-Muslim comments published in her 2003 book, "A Cry in the Silence." Bardot reportedly broke into tears in the courtroom and apologized, saying she "never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody." The Guardian and Le Monde also reported that the book also contained insulting passages that targeted LGBTQ+ people and the unemployed. The Guardian did not report Bardot's previous charges, but both Al Jazeera and Le Monde reported it was her fourth conviction.

The confusion over the number of Bardot's convictions appeared to begin in 2000. According to the BBC, Le Monde and Libération, Bardot was fined 30,000 francs that year for a passages in her book "Pluto's Square." The passage was actually a reprint of an op-ed, titled "An open letter to my lost France," which French sources claimed was published in Le Figaro in April 1997 (more on this later). Le Monde reported that the text criticized "the number of Muslim immigrants in France and their practices." The BBC noted that she attacked a "Muslim festival in which sheep are ritually slaughtered," and Libération named it — "Aïd el-Kébir," another name for the Eid al-Adha holiday. 

However, when it came time to count, the BBC called it Bardot's third conviction, while Libération called it her second. Le Monde did not report Bardot's previous convictions.

In 1998, according to Libération and an Agence France-Presse wire report published in the Lebanese paper L'Orient-Le Jour, Bardot was fined 20,000 francs for comparing the ritual sacrifice of sheep during Eid al-Adha to the killing of humans in Algeria, a former French colony. The BBC briefly mentioned this conviction at the end of its article reporting on the 2000 charge. However, the Libération article said Bardot had been convicted again on the charge, meaning it was her second offense. That contradicted the paper's 2000 report claiming she had been convicted only twice. The AFP story also noted it was Bardot's second conviction.

Finally, in 1997, according to the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and an Associate Press story translated into French for the Canadian newspaper L'Acadie Nouvelle, Bardot was fined 10,000 francs for the original publication of the "open letter to my lost France" she would later receive a second fine for in 2000. The LA Times and L'Acadie Nouvelle reported that the letter was actually published in April 1996 in Le Figaro, not 1997 as claimed in the later French reports. The article, according to The Washington Post, claimed that France had been "invaded […] by an overpopulation of foreigners, particularly Muslims." Critically, the Le Monde and Libération articles from 2000 also mentioned this particular fine.

Though we can't be certain, there are two possible explanations for the discrepancy. The first is that Bardot was charged six times in total and confusion arose because two charges were based on the same piece of text. This may have led some journalists to disagree over whether the 1997 and 2000 should be counted separately or as one. 

The second is that one of Bardot's six charges was for a different hate speech law, not for inciting racial hatred, and the charge was misinterpreted when reported in English. This would likely refer to the 2021 charge, which Le Monde reported was for "public insults of a racial and religious nature," not inciting racial hatred.

After her death, Bardot's obituary in Le Monde claimed she had been convicted five times. Meanwhile, her New York Times obituary claimed she had been convicted of the charge five times by 2008 — in other words, totaling six after 2021.