Former French actress Brigitte Bardot says most actresses who have protested sexual harassment are “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many of them “tease” producers to land film parts.
“The vast majority are being hypocritical and ridiculous,” she told the French magazine Paris Match, as translated by France 24.
Bardot says many actresses have come out with sexual misconduct allegations “so that we talk about them.”
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Bardot noted that “lots of actresses try to play the tease with producers to get a role. And then, so we will talk about them, they say they were harassed.”
The 83-year-old actress says she’s never been a victim of sexual harassment. She mentioned that she “found it charming when men told me that I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside.”
This isn’t the first time Bardot has shared her controversial opinions. She has been fined five times for inciting racial hatred over repeated derogatory comments about Islam and Muslim communities in France.
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Bardot is the second French film industry star to distance herself from the worldwide protest movement against sexual misconduct. Catherine Deneuve has signed a collective op-ed saying “insistent or clumsy hitting-on is not a crime.”
“Rape is a crime but insistent or clumsy flirting is not, nor is gallantry a macho aggression,” the op-ed read. “Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss.”
Deneuve had a change of heart after the outpour of backlash. The actress published a letter in the newspaper Liberation apologizing to victims of sexual harassment.
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“I fraternally salute all women victims of odious acts who may have felt aggrieved by the letter in Le Monde,” she wrote. “It is to them, and them alone, that I offer my apologies.”
She also distanced herself from some of the supporters of the original letter. “That is why I would like to say to conservatives, racists, and traditionalists of all shades who decided it was strategic to give me their support that I am no dupe. They will have neither my gratitude nor my friendship. To the contrary. I am a liberated woman and I will stay that way.”
—With files from the Associated Press
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