French former actor Brigitte Bardot has joined Catherine Deneuve in expressing distaste for women in the film industry who complain of sexual harassment, saying “in the vast majority of cases” it is “hypocritical, ridiculous and uninteresting”.
In an interview with Paris Match, Bardot said: “Many actresses flirt with producers to get a role. Then when they tell the story afterwards, they say they have been harassed … in actual fact, rather than benefit them, it only harms them.”
Saying that she had never been a victim of sexual harassment, Bardot added: “I thought it was nice to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a pretty little ass. This kind of compliment is nice.”
Bardot becomes the second high-profile French film industry figure to come out in recent days against the campaign against harassment in the industry, which in France has coalesced around #BalanceTonPorc (“Squeal on Your Pig”), the French equivalent to #MeToo. On 9 January it emerged that Catherine Deneuve had signed an open letter criticising a “puritanical ... wave of purification” and that “the liberty to seduce and importune was essential”. Deneuve later apologised to victims of sexual assault, saying that others among the signatories had “distort[ed] the spirit of the text”.
Bardot retired from acting in 1973 after a 20-year career, becoming arguably international cinema’s best-known sex symbol after starring in a string of hits, including And God Created Women, La Vérité and Le Mépris. Since her retirement, Bardot has been active in animal welfare issues as well as being an outspoken supporter of the National Front. She has been convicted five times in French courts for racial hatred offences, paying a series of fines.
