First responders rushed to the home of iconic former sex symbol Brigitte Bardot on Wednesday after she suffered some difficulties breathing.
Bardot’s husband, Bernard d’Ormale, confirmed the news and clarified what happened shortly after the incident occurred at their Saint-Tropez residence.
“It was around 9 a.m. when Brigitte had trouble breathing,” he told local outlet Var-matin, noting that ambulances in the south of France initially “got the wrong” address.
“[Her breathing] was stronger than usual but she did not lose consciousness. Let’s call it a moment of respiratory distraction.”
D’Ormale added that once firefighters arrived, they put Bardot, 88, on oxygen “and stayed to watch her” for a while.
“Like all people of a certain age, she can no longer bear the heat,” he explained. “It happens at 88 years old. She must not make useless efforts.”
Page Six has reached out to reps for Bardot for additional comment.
Many know Bardot as one of the most sought-out actress’ of the ’50s and ’60s. However, she left the spotlight in 1973 shortly before her 40th birthday.
In the years since, the French activist has dedicated her life to protecting animals – but has become a controversial figure in the process.
Bardot was most recently fined for inciting racial hatred after describing the inhabitants of the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion as “degenerate savages.”
“The natives have kept their savage genes,” she wrote in a 2019 open letter to the prefect of Réunion, claiming the islanders were mistreating animals.
It marked her sixth conviction, having previously made Islamophobic comments targeted at the island’s Hindu Tamil population. She also wrote a letter in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in which she criticized the Muslim festival of Aid el-Kebir.
James Clarke, a UK-based author and film historian who penned the 2023 book “Being Bardot,” recently revealed why Bardot stepped away from the spotlight at the height of her career.
“There was some exhaustion there, not just from the pace of work, but just [being] the endless subject of a camera lens, whether it’s a still camera lens or a movie lens,” Clarke told Fox News Digital in June.
“She got to that point where it’s just like, ‘I’ve kind of done it and 20 years has been sufficient.'”
In 1987, Bardot auctioned off about one-fifth of her personal property, including valuable jewelry, art and clothes, which raised $500,000.
“I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” Bardot said at the time. “And now I am giving my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.”
She gave a rare interview to Vogue Homme in 2012, in which she recalled feeling “crushed” by her celebrity status.
“No one can imagine how awful it was. A nightmare. I just couldn’t live like that anymore,” she told the outlet.
“I quit the films when I was 38 because I’d had it up to here, so I have no desire to go back.”
