Two years after writing an open letter where she called residents of Réunion island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, “degenerate savages,” French actor Brigitte Bardot has been fined 20,000 euros, about $23,000, by a French court for “inciting racial hatred,” according to the New York Post. Her spokesperson, Bruno Jacquelin, was also fined for his role in disseminating her letter to news organizations, the Post added, citing a report from report from Le Figaro.
In the 2019 letter, Bardot claimed that the Réunionese slaughtered goats inhumanely, calling them “natives [who] have kept their savage genes” and “a degenerate population still soaked in barbarous ancestral traditions” that evoke the “cannibalism of past centuries,” according to Agence France-Presse.
The 87-year-old actor, known for her long modeling career and for movie roles including 1956’s And God Created Woman, has been fined five previous times for comments attacking Islam and its followers, according to the New York Post. She was most recently fined 15,000 euros in 2008 for a letter about animal slaughter that she wrote to Nicolas Sarkozy, which referred to Muslims as “this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts,” per a BBC report.
In the years after Bardot stepped away from acting, she became known as an animal rights activist. “I don’t care about looking conservative and awkward,” she said in 2012. “I’m only looking to assuage my soul and protect the animals.” Her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, was an adviser to far-right French party National Front (now known as the National Rally), and in 2017 Bardot threw her support behind Marine Le Pen, the party’s leader known for anti-Muslim comments.
Two of Bardot’s previous fines pertained to comments about Islam she made in her books Pluto’s Square and A Scream in the Silence, according to the Daily Mail. In a 2004 court appearance to defend herself over A Scream in the Silence, Bardot apologized but continued, “I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody. It is not in my character,” according to the BBC. “Among Muslims, I think there are some who are very good and some hoodlums, like everywhere.”
— Inside the Sudden Disappearance of the Art World’s Most Wanted Man
— The Guy Who Bought Jeffrey Epstein’s Jet Has Some Regrets
— Eight Books We Couldn’t Put Down This Month
— Why Did the Palace Initially Keep the Queen’s Hospital Stay a Secret?
— The John Mulaney–Olivia Munn Rumor Mill Keeps Churning
— The Best Schitt’s Creek Merchandise
— The Story Behind Prince Harry’s Democratic Roots
— This Is 40 for Ivanka Trump
— From the Archive: In Her Majesty’s Private Service
— Sign up for “The Buyline” to receive a curated list of fashion, books, and beauty buys in one weekly newsletter.