EXCLUSIVE: Brigitte Bardot's Suicide Confession — Screen Siren Tried to Kill Herself 'Multiple' Times After Disastrous Affairs and Marriages
Brigitte Bardot attempted to take her own life several times before her death at age 91.
Dec. 29 2025, Published 2:30 p.m. ET
While she was worshiped as a silver screen siren, the late Brigitte Bardot's real life wasn't as glamorous.
She was unlucky in love, and after suffering disastrous affairs and failed marriages, the Viva Maria star plunged into suicidal depression and attempted to take her own life several times, RadarOnline.com can reveal. The stunning revelation follows Bardot's death at age 91 on December 28.
Bardot's 'Suicidal Tendency'
Bardot died at age 91 on December 28.
"She has a real suicidal tendency," said director Roger Vadim, the first of Bardot's four husbands.
Bardot, who quit the film industry at age 39 and became an animal rights activist, skyrocketed to fame when she was just 22-years-old and stripped down in Vadim's 1956 film And God Created Woman.
The French beauty later confessed to having a demented fascination with suicide and death.
Bardot quit acting at age 39 and became a reclusive animal rights activist.
"For me, death was like love, a real romantic escape," Bardot confessed. "I have really been on the verge of suicide several times. It's a miracle I am still alive."
Her closest brush with death came on her 26th birthday in 1960, nine-months after she delivered her only child, son Nicholas, whose dad was Bardot's second husband, actor Jacques Charrier.
She was said to hand her baby over to her in-laws to raise, saying, "I couldn't be Nicholas' roots because I was completely uprooted, unbalanced, lost in a crazy world."
Bardot once took a handful of tranquilizers, drank red wine and wandered into the ocean on her 49th birthday.
Another close attempt to take her own life came on her 49th birthday when she took a handful of tranquilizers, drank red wine, and wandered out into the ocean mere hours before her friends planned to throw her a party.
"It was Brigitte's birthday, and she was depressed," a source claimed, noting the actress had recently broken up with a lover.
Biographer Jeffrey Robinson once described Bardot as a "woman who suffered from severe depression, but never learned how to deal with it."
Bardot Was 'a Haunted Woman'
The movie star once confessed she was 'a haunted woman' who struggled to cope with her fame.
Those who were close to Bardot claimed she was never able to cope with the media attention that followed her for the majority of her life.
"I'm a haunted woman," she confessed at one point. "I can't take a step without being questioned and surrounded."
When she finally quit the film industry, she vanished into her own world and retreated to her St. Tropez estate, where she only emerged to advocate for the well-being of animals.
"For 20 years, I was cornered like an animal," Bardot once said. "I had crazy people sneaking into my bathroom to take my toothbrush. I was treated as a husband-stealer. One woman wanted to disfigure me with a fork."
"Good thing I stopped, because what happened to Marilyn Monroe would have happened to me," she added.
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Like Monroe, Bardot also suffered a series of failed romantic relationships. She was a 15-year-old model when she met her first husband and tied the knot with Vadim when she was only 18-years-old.
Bardot and Vadim divorced five-years later, and she went on to marry her second husband, Charrier, though the union lasted less than three-years. Her marriage to German playboy Gunner Sachs was just as short-lived.
She found stability with fourth husband Bernard D'Ormale, whom she met at a dinner party and wed in 1992.
In addition to her multiple marriages, Bardot had a few high-profile flings, including one with her And God Created Woman co-star Louis Trintignant.
