Grammy-winning singer Chappell Roan has backtracked on her praise for Brigitte Bardot after learning about the late French film icon’s “very disappointing” far-right political beliefs.
“Holy (expletive) i did not know all that insane (expletive) Ms. Bardot stood for,” Roan wrote Monday in a post on her Instagram Stories.
Bardot, an international sex symbol who starred in Roger Vadim’s “And God Created Woman” and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt,” gravitated toward the French far-right in her later years.
She was repeatedly fined for inciting racial hatred against Muslim immigrants to France, according to news reports. In her 1996 memoir, she declared her support for far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen’s advisers included Bernard d’Ormale, Bardot’s fourth husband.
“I do not condone this,” Roan wrote in her Instagram post, adding that it had been “very disappointing to learn” about Bardot’s political beliefs. Roan did not specify which views she found objectionable.
Roan, 27, name-dropped Bardot on her 2023 single “Red Wine Supernova,” which opens with the rhyming lyric: “She was a playboy, Brigitte Bardot / She showed me things I didn’t know.”
After Bardot died on Sunday, Roan initially paid her respects on Instagram. “Rest in peace Ms. Bardot,” the singer wrote. “She was my inspiration for red wine supernova.”
French political figures across the ideological spectrum eulogized Bardot in statements after her death. French President Emmanuel Macron said she “embodied a life of freedom.”
Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party, a successor to the National Front, hailed her as a “passionate patriot” who symbolized “an entire era of French history.”
Bardot was a committed advocate for animal rights and launched a foundation devoted to their protection. She lobbied for animal welfare legislation and helped secure convictions against perpetrators of animal abuse.
Bruno Jacquelin, a representative of Bardot’s foundation, told The Associated Press that she died at her home in southern France. She was 91. Jacquelin did not provide a cause of death, adding that arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services.
Bardot had been hospitalized last month after a period of ill health.
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