Brigitte Bardot has reportedly undergone surgery after being rushed to the hospital with a mystery illness.
Citing French media outlets, the Daily Mail reported Thursday that the actress, 91, was staying at her home in Saint-Tropez when she came down with a “serious illness” about three weeks ago.
She was reportedly taken to a hospital in Toulon, where she remains recovering after having undergone an unspecified operation.
Bardot’s condition is being monitored by doctors, per the Mail.
Her reps did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Bargot was previously rushed to the hospital in July 2023 over breathing issues.
“It was around 9 a.m. when Brigitte had trouble breathing,” her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, told a local outlet at the time.
“[Her breathing] was stronger than usual, but she did not lose consciousness. Let’s call it a moment of respiratory distraction.”
Once first responders arrived, D’Ormale, 84, said they put his wife on oxygen “and stayed to watch her” for a while.
“Like all people of a certain age, she can no longer bear the heat,” he lamented. “It happens at 88 years old. She must not make useless efforts.”
Many know the former sex symbol as one of the most sought-out actresses of the ’50s and ’60s. However, she left the spotlight in 1973 shortly before her 40th birthday because she felt “crushed” by her celebrity status, which she described as a “nightmare.”
“Being Bardot” author James Clarke elaborated on the reasoning in 2023, saying, “There was some exhaustion there, not just from the pace of work, but just [being] the endless subject of a camera lens, whether it’s a still camera lens or a movie lens.”
In 1987, Bardot auctioned off about one-fifth of her personal property, including valuable jewelry, art and clothes, which raised $500,000.
“I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she shared at the time. “And now I am giving my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.”
In the years since, the activist has dedicated her life to protecting and advocating for animals — but has become a controversial figure in the process.
In 2019, she was fined for inciting racial hatred after describing the inhabitants of the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion as “degenerate savages.”
“The natives have kept their savage genes,” she wrote at the time in an open letter to the prefect of Réunion, claiming the islanders were mistreating animals.
It marked her sixth conviction, having previously made Islamophobic comments targeted at the island’s Hindu Tamil population. She also wrote a letter in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy in which she criticized the Muslim festival of Aid el-Kebir.
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