Brigitte Bardot inheritance row deepens after private letter to partner leaked

Brigitte Bardot inheritance dispute worsens after private letter to partner is leaked

A dispute over the estate of late screen icon Brigitte Bardot has escalated after a private letter was made public, apparently showing her severing ties with her final partner.

The handwritten note, dated November 2022 — three years before she died at her home in Saint Tropez — accuses Bernard de Chiara, her companion for more than 30 years, of "patiently destroying me day after day".

The leaked letter gives the other side in the Bardot legacy fight — the animal rights foundation that carries her name — a useful argument. De Chiara says the foundation is trying to dispose of her estate too quickly, without considering friends and close companions.

A week ago, de Chiara, 85, was made to leave the seaside home known as La Madrague, which he shared with Bardot from the early 1990s.

After being supported financially by her for so many years, he is said to have neither a bank account nor a social security card.

He was also angered when the Brigitte Bardot Foundation arranged a September sale of household items largely taken from the late actress's Paris apartment. The auction brought in nearly €1m (£835,000), split between the Foundation and Bardot's only son, Nicolas Charrier.

"I found it extraordinary that just a few months after Brigitte's death, they already wanted to make a souvenir out of her. I did not appreciate that one bit," de Chiara said.

In the letter, which opens "Bernard, it's a failure!", Bardot said she had given "everything" in the hope of finding a "companion would could offer back my love, share my joys and immense sorrows... who is happy at the life I am giving him."

But she ended by writing: "Today I have reached the end-point of my distress... I am so in need of a shoulder, a support, a tenderness, a presence – which you are incapable of giving."

(a pun on the French dort mal – sleeps badly), de Chiara was a businessman and former associate of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Friends say his relationship with Bardot had its ups and downs. They were never married under French law, but he lived with her until the end and cared for her as she was dying.

When her will was opened after her death last December, it left the estate to the Foundation and her son, who lives quietly in Oslo. De Chiara was not mentioned, and Bardot also specified that La Madrague should be empty within six months of her death.

As lawyers now prepare a final inventory of the late actress's assets, the Foundation has accused de Chiara of taking items from La Madrague, including her Mini Moke jeep. "I am not accusing him of theft, but it's gone and that's a problem," Foundation President Max Guazzani said on Tuesday.

According to the Foundation, de Chiara has no legal right except for a share of the Paris flat, which is now being sold. For now, he is living in an apartment rented from the Saint Tropez town hall.

Guazzini said that "on a human level one can understand [de Chiara's reluctance to leave La Madrague]. But it's the law and it's also what Brigitte Bardot wanted.

"It's not our fault that she did not leave him the right to live there. What else are we supposed to do?"

The high expense of maintaining La Madrague — and Bardot's second home, La Garrigue, in the hills behind the Mediterranean coast — means the Foundation must find ways to make the properties generate income. Both houses were in poor condition when she died, and now require round-the-clock security.

A plan for a museum has been dropped because La Madrague cannot be reached by car. Instead, the house could be opened for guided tours, as well as fashion shows and film shoots.

After Bardot left cinema in 1973, she devoted herself to animal welfare, and her foundation says it now looks after 13,000 animals.

Bardot had been married three times before she met de Chiara: to filmmaker Roger Vadim, actor Jacques Charrier and industrial heir Gunter Sachs.

French media say she married de Chiara in a ceremony in Norway, but this was never registered under French law.