I believe that Bridgitte Bardot (September 28th, 1934 – December 28, 2025, age 91), was an extraordinary lady in many ways.
Being a mother was not one of them.
(Read the tribute article I wrote on Bardot here…)
Perhaps having been born into a wealthy bourgeois family in Paris, France, along with her overwhelming fame, contributed to this unusual viewpoint.
Brigitte Bardot has spoken with unusual candor about motherhood, and her comments have remained controversial for decades.
Unlike many stories about Old Hollywood and European cinema, there is little ambiguity about her feelings because she described them herself in interviews and in her memoirs.
She Really Did NOT Want To Become A Mother
By the late 1950s, Bardot was one of the most famous sex symbols in the world.
She felt trapped by fame, relentlessly pursued by photographers, and increasingly depressed by the lack of privacy.
When she became pregnant in 1959 during her marriage to Jacques Charrier, she viewed the pregnancy as something imposed upon her rather than something she wanted.
She later admitted that:
- She never wanted children.
- She felt pregnancy was a loss of her freedom.
- She hated the physical changes to her body.
- She became deeply unhappy during the pregnancy.
I read somewhere that she would actually run into the edges of table and walls stomach first to try to have a miscarriage. That may be speculation, as I don’t remember the source, but it would not be outside of the realm of possibility of what we know of Bardot.
In her memoir Initiales B.B., Bardot wrote about feeling as though she were “a prisoner” of the pregnancy.
She described waiting for it to end rather than looking forward to becoming a mother.
Below is a picture of Bardot with her husband, Jacques Charrier, and their baby boy, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier. Nicolas was Bardot’s only child.
The Pregnancy Was Emotionally Devastating
The pregnancy coincided with one of the darkest periods of her life.
She had already struggled with depression and had attempted suicide before becoming pregnant.
During this period she felt:
- imprisoned by fame,
- trapped in her marriage,
- trapped by pregnancy,
- unable to escape the constant attention of the press.
The paparazzi became even more obsessive because photographs of the world’s most famous actress while pregnant were enormously valuable.
She later said she felt like an animal being hunted.
Bardot Was Blunt In Her Biography
She wrote candidly about this in her 1996 memoir Initiales B.B.
She believed she was too immature and unequipped for motherhood.
In the memoir, she explained that she wasn’t ready for the responsibility, admitting it was hard to say out loud, but that she simply wasn’t adult enough to take care of a child. She was 25 years old when she had her son, Nicolas.
Motherhood felt like a loss of freedom. Bardot described in her memoir wanting to free herself in every sense of the word, saying she felt imprisoned by fame, marriage, and motherhood all at once.
She Dreaded The Birth
Bardot described childbirth not as a joyful event, but as an ordeal she wanted over with.
When her son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, was born in January 1960, photographers surrounded her home and hospital. The frenzy became so intense that some photographers reportedly climbed trees and roofs trying to obtain pictures.
She later remarked that the media circus confirmed everything she hated about becoming pregnant.
Her Relationship With Her Son
This is where the story becomes especially sad.
Bardot acknowledged many times that she lacked maternal instincts.
She admitted she did not enjoy caring for a baby and often felt emotionally detached.
Rather than pretending otherwise years later, she openly said that motherhood simply was not something she had wanted.
As Nicolas grew older:
- he spent much of his childhood with his father, Jacques Charrier,
- Bardot gradually relinquished custody,
- Charrier became the primary parent.
Eventually Bardot essentially withdrew from raising him.
Did She Love Him?
Bardot has always insisted that her decision was actually kinder than pretending to be the devoted mother she knew she wasn’t.
Her argument has essentially been:
“Better to have one parent who truly wants the child than one who resents the role.”
Many psychologists would note that emotional availability matters greatly in parenting. Bardot herself, has never suggested she was able to provide that consistently during Nicolas’s childhood.
Her decision to let his father assume primary responsibility reflected that reality, though opinions differ on whether it was the best outcome.
Affects On Her Son
Nicolas Charrier has lived an extremely private life.
Unlike many celebrity children, he avoided the entertainment industry altogether.
Reports over the years suggest that his relationship with his mother has been distant for much of his life.
There have been periods of reconciliation, but it has never appeared to become especially close.
Bardot Looking Back
One interesting aspect is that Bardot has never substantially changed her account to make it more socially acceptable (which is commendable).
Even decades later she continued to say that:
- motherhood was not her calling,
- she never enjoyed being pregnant,
- she resented the pressure society places on women to become mothers if they do not genuinely want children.
Her honesty has drawn both criticism and praise. Some have viewed her comments as cold or shocking. While others have argued that she was one of the first internationally famous women to openly admit that motherhood is not a universal desire.
Ironically, after stepping away from films in the 1970s, Bardot devoted the nurturing energy she did have toward animal welfare rather than family life.
Through the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, she became one of the world’s most prominent animal-rights advocates, dedicating decades to rescuing and protecting animals.
For Bardot, that became the central purpose of the second half of her life.
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