Legendary French icon Brigitte Bardot, celebrated as a 1960s sex symbol and one of the most captivating actresses of the 20th century, has passed away at the age of 91. Later in life, Bardot became a fervent advocate for animal rights.

Bruno Jacquelin, representing the Brigitte Bardot Foundation dedicated to animal protection, confirmed her passing to The Associated Press. Bardot died at her residence in southern France, though the cause of death remains undisclosed.

Details regarding her funeral or memorial services have yet to be determined. Bardot had been hospitalized just last month.

Her outspoken nature often stirred controversy, such as in 2012 when she penned a letter supporting Marine Le Pen, the then-presidential candidate for the National Rally party, during her unsuccessful campaign for the French presidency.

In 2018, amid the #MeToo movement’s peak, Bardot sparked debate by criticizing actors who protested against sexual harassment in the film industry. She described their actions as “hypocritical” and “ridiculous,” suggesting many had flirted with producers to secure roles.

Bardot maintained that she never experienced sexual harassment herself and appreciated compliments on her beauty, describing them as “charming” gestures.

A privileged, but ‘difficult’ upbringing

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born September 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.

Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.

But it was French movie producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote And God Created Woman to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.

The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.

The film was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.

“It’s an embarrassment to have acted so badly,” Bardot said of her early films.

“I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”

Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for paparazzi.

Bardot never adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the constant press attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broke into her house only two weeks before she gave birth to snap a picture of her pregnant.

Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a handsome French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father, and later said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.

“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had none to offer.”

In her 1996 autobiography Initiales B.B., she likened her pregnancy to “a tumour growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive”.

Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship again ended in divorce three years later.

Among her films were A Parisian (1957); In Case of Misfortune, in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; The Truth (1960); Private Life (1962); A Ravishing Idiot (1964); Shalako (1968); Women (1969); The Bear And The Doll (1970); Rum Boulevard (1971); and Don Juan (1973).

With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed Contempt, directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot’s curves and legs in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.

“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking.

“And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn [Monroe] perished because of it.”

Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after The Woman Grabber.

Reinventing herself in middle age

She emerged a decade later with a new persona: An animal rights lobbyist, her face was wrinkled and her voice was deep following years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewellery to create a foundation devoted exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.

Her activism knew no borders. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to US President Bill Clinton asking why the US Navy recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.

She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and campaigned on behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens and turtle doves.

By the late 1990s, Bardot was making headlines that would lose her many fans. She was convicted and fined five times between 1997 and 2008 for inciting racial hatred in incidents inspired by her anger at Muslim animal slaughtering rituals.

“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward … and despite all the promises that have been made to me by all different governments put together — my distress takes over,” Bardot told the AP.

In 1997, several towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actress voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.

Bardot once said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.

“I can understand hunted animals because of the way I was treated,” Bardot said.

“What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”