Chrissie Hynde defends Brigitte Bardot’s legacy: “Politics has nothing to do with it”
Chrissie Hynde has defended the legacy of the late French icon Brigitte Bardot, which has been scrutinised after her death due to her far-right politics.
Bardot died in Saint-Tropez, France, on December 28th, 2025, aged 91. She was previously hospitalised in October. Her funeral took place earlier this week and was screened across Saint-Tropez for the general public.
Earlier this week, her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, confirmed her cause of death, revealing to the Paris Match that she was diagnosed with cancer shortly before her death and underwent two major surgeries shortly before her passing.
Following Bardot’s death, many articles have questioned her legacy, including one from Vogue Magazine, titled ‘Mourning Brigitte Bardot Doesn’t Mean Absolving He’, that has upset Hynde.
Notably, between 1997 and 2008, Bardot was taken to court five times on charges of inciting racial hatred due to Islamophobic comments. She was a public supporter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded France’s National Rally, and his daughter, Marine, who also led the party, was in attendance at her funeral.
- Right-wing views, racism and Islamophobic slurs: the uncomfortable truth about Brigitte Bardot
- Brigitte Bardot, French screen icon, dead aged 91
On her social media channels, Hynde said of the article, “Are you kidding me? Vogue magazine vilifying Brigitte Bardot the minute she died? Vogue magazine, and every fashion magazine in the world for that matter, owes more to Brigitte Bardot than any other human living or dead.”
Heaping praise on Bardot, Hynde said, “She personified grace, elegance, beauty, glamour, style, and women’s rights. She was an animal rights activist and anyone who knows anything about animal rights knows that we will always side with the animal if it’s being tortured or abused in any way.”
The Pretenders singer then said that “politics has nothing to do with it”, before addressing the allegations that Bardot was Islamophobic, adding, “And by the way, a ‘phobia’ is an irrational fear. I cannot imagine that Bardot had any irrational fears judging by the way she lived her life. Perhaps people working for Vogue magazine should buy themselves a dictionary.”
Hynde concluded her statement, “I’m not even sure why anyone buys Vogue magazine but then I’m in the rock ‘n’ roll business. We don’t use make up artists or stylists. If anything we just try to emulate our heroes, like Lemmy and Brigitte Bardot. They expressed themselves by the way they looked… they didn’t hire people to do it for them.”
Following Bardot’s death, pop star Chappell Roan initially took to Instagram Stories on December 28th to write, “Rest in peace Ms. Bardot. She was my inspiration for red wine supernova”. However, following criticism, she then deleted her tribute and clarified, “Holy shit I did not know all that insane shit Ms. Bardot stood for. I do not condone this. Very disappointing to learn.”
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