Bardot: “I’m at Peace with Animals”

Reclusive former movie star and animal rights campaigner Bridgette Bardot has told how she is more at peace with animals than people.

Bardot, 84, a longstanding and often extreme animal rights advocate, said: “Humans have hurt me, deeply. And it is only with animals, with nature, that I found peace.”

At the launch of the long-awaited memoir she told reporters:

“I know what it is like to be hunted.”

She made her remarks in her new book Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir.

At the height of her fame in the 1970s, Bardot famously walked away from her Hollywood lifestyle, stopped acting, and became a reclusive figure, complaining of the pressures of fame and loss of privacy.

Fans of Bardot and her film work may be disappointed to discover that much of the new book is devoted to what she calls the “unspeakable suffering” that Bardot believes animals are subjected to as a result of “man’s barbarism.”

Bardot also said she will stand for the Animalist Party—a fringe French animal welfare group—in the European Parliament elections in May.

However, the chances of Bardot being elected are slim, as the Animalist Party is unlikely to win enough support to gain any seats in the upcoming European elections.