On this day in vegan history · September 28, 1934
Brigitte Bardot Is Born
France's biggest film star spent the back half of her life proving that fame is just a tool, and she used hers to go after seal hunters, horse meat, and slaughterhouses.
The facts
- Born
- September 28, 1934, Paris, France
- Retired from acting
- 1973
- Foundation founded
- 1986, self-funded by auctioning her own jewelry and belongings for roughly three million francs (about $430,000)
- Causes
- Canadian seal hunts, horse meat, ritual and industrial slaughter, the Faroe Islands dolphin hunt
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris on September 28, 1934, and by the 1960s she was the most photographed woman in France. She quit acting in 1973, walking away at the height of her fame, and turned her attention to a cause with far less glamour attached to it. In 1986 she founded the Fondation Brigitte Bardot, paying for it herself by auctioning off her own jewelry and belongings for about three million francs. From there she campaigned against Canadian seal hunts, horse meat consumption, and cruel slaughter methods, and kept writing to heads of state directly when quieter appeals didn't work.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
This is not a hunt but a mass slaughter
Brigitte Bardot, in a August 2010 letter to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark opposing the Faroe Islands dolphin hunt
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Bardot showed that a movie star's fame could be redirected into a funded, permanent campaign rather than a single tearful appeal, and her foundation kept fights like the seal hunt in public view for decades after the cameras stopped caring about her films.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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