Chappell Roan praised Brigitte Bardot upon learning of the French actress’ death, but now has walked those comments back, after getting some pushback from fans who informed the singer that the late French star was famous for right-wing views that led to convictions for inciting hatred in French courts.
“Holy shit I did not know all that insane shit Mr. Bardot stood for,” Roan wrote Monday in an Instagram Stories post. “I do not condone this. Very disappointing to learn.”
It was not surprising that Roan would have at least some praise for Bardot, having name-checked her in the very first line of one of her most famous songs, “Red Wine Supernova,” which begins with the lyric: “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot / She showed me things I didn’t know.” Still, it did come as a shock to some Roan devotees that she did not qualify that with a disavowal or at least acknowledgement of the extremely polarizing social views Bardot became most famous for later in life. Roan’s followup message pleaded ignorance of what some fans would consider Bardot’s dark side.
“Rest in peace Ms. Bardot,” Roan’s initial message on Sunday read. “She was my inspiration for red wine supernova.”
Bardot’s reputation has been fractured in the decades following her 1960s peak as a cinematic sex symbol who also appeared in art films like “Contempt.” Outside of the realm of films, some remember her best for her animal activism and founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in the 1980s to advocate for animal rights. Others know her primarily for her statements against Muslims in European life, as Bardot was convicted five times in France on charges of inciting racial hatred.
Wrote Le Monde in a remembrance of Bardot Monday: “Brigitte Bardot, the actress, was known for ‘Le Mépris (Contempt)’; Bardot, the political figure, embodied racial hatred. Convicted five times for inciting racial hatred, Bardot remained, for three decades, an exception in French culture – the only celebrity to openly defend the far right.”
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Le Monde further said, “Her advocacy for animals went hand in hand with her Islamophobia.” Bardot first raised her voice to write a letter about animal slaughter on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Kebir, then eventually took that objection much further. “They slaughter women and children, our monks, our civil servants, our tourists and our sheep, one day they’ll slaughter us, and we’ll have deserved it,” she wrote in foreseeing a “Muslim France.”
Bardot had been married since the 1990s to Bernard d’Ormale, who served as adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right Front National.
Roan is far from the only popular singer to have called out Bardot in song, as an iconic reference, if not necessarily a deeply personal one. Olivia Rodrigo compared the subject of her song “Lacy” to “Bardot reincarnate.” Going all the way back to 1963, Bob Dylan wrote the lines on his “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album: “Well, my telephone rang it would not stop / It’s President Kennedy callin’ me up / He said, My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow? / I said my friend, John, Brigitte Bardot…”
From Variety US