Much of the world joined Chappell Roan this week in discovering the rank racist past of the late actress Bridgette Bardot, who died Sunday. Multiple celebrities posted tributes to the French pop culture icon, only for their fans to inform them of her opposition to interracial marriage and attacks on the Muslim community.
Roan, among others, reversed course immediately and apologized.
You don’t have to hand it to Bridgette Bardot
Bardot passed away at age 91 on Sunday, leading to a rash of tributes and fond recollections of her work. Pop star Chappell Roan joined in, calling her the inspiration for “Red Wine Supernova” in an Instagram story, only to delete her praise on Monday after the comments rolled in.
“Holy [expletive] i did not know all that insane [expletive] Ms. Bardot stood for obvs I do not condone this,” she wrote in a replacement post, adding, “very disappointing to learn.”
Roan mentioned Bardot by name in the 2023 hit, but apparently nobody mentioned the actress’s politics to her then.
She’s not the only one who was blindsided by history this week. Fellow actress Odessa A’zion walked a similar journey, replacing her original post on the subject with one that said “okie dokie learning a lot about Bridgette Bardot.”
“I ain’t know she was like that,” she wrote.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter, Apple Martin, also had an Instagram revelation this week of the same nature.
“I was completely unaware of Bardot’s views and will never support any kind of hatred directed at anyone,” she wrote. “She is not the person I thought she was whatsoever.”
Bardot secured her place in history not only as a prolific actress but also as a symbol of the mid-20th-century sexual revolution. Feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once called her a “locomotive of women’s history.”
She was also deeply racist and Islamophobic, homophobic, and, in fact, no friend to feminism. In her 2003 book A Scream in the Silence, she attacked interracial marriage, Islam, immigration, and even the role of women in politics. The French government fined her multiple times for inciting racial hatred.
“Her activism’s always been fake”
Chappell Roan in particular tends to get a lot of flak for gaffs like this, typically inciting fierce discourse. The Bardot incident is no exception. On X, folks soon drew lines over whether Roan should have known more about her inspiration before she wrote the song.
User @misssmonsterr expressed some confusion around the concept of “calling someone inspirational but not knowing anything about them.”
“Chappell Roan posting that she was inspired by Brigitte Bardot, one of the most infamous racists and homophobes of all time, and people find it shocking?” wrote @atinymingi_. “Baby, she was born & raised in deep south Missouri into an ultra Republican Christian family. Her activism’s always been fake.”
Others defended Roan on the basis that they themselves didn’t know about Bardot’s racism until yesterday.
“Gonna go ahead and guess a lot of the people mad at Chappell Roan for not knowing Brigitte Bardot was a racist had just found out Brigitte Bardot was a racist about ten minutes before her,” said @jenny2x4.
Some explained the backlash by suggesting that people put a target on Roan’s back long ago.
“There’s a really deep and bizzare [sic] hatred for this woman online ever since she said she didn’t feel comfortable endorsing a war criminal,” claimed @ra5eeki. “Like this woman’s politics is better than all your billionaire faves combined and that’s what threatens them.”
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