Brigitte Bardot died of most cancers, her grieving husband reveals as mourners collect for St Tropez funeral with hard-right chief Marine Le Pen amongst invitations

The grieving husband of French movie icon Brigitte Bardot has revealed she had undergone two operations for cancer before she succumbed to the disease last month.

Bernard d’Ormale, who was married to the movie star for over 30 years, told Paris Match magazine in an interview published ahead of her funeral on Wednesday that his wife ‘had tolerated very well the the two procedures she underwent to treat the cancer that took her’. 

The star of ‘And God Created Woman’ died aged 91 on December 28 at her home in Saint-Tropez, where she retreated after giving up her film career in the early 1970s.  No cause of death bad been given until now. 

Details surrounding the actress’s death comes on the same day well-wishers gather in her hometown of Saint-Tropez for a church service and burial.

The low-key funeral is set to reflect her lifelong love of animals as well as her far-right political views.

Many eyes will be on the guests at the service at Notre-Dame de l’Assomption church, burial at a seaside cemetery and a public event in the Riviera resort.

D’Ormale also revealed on Wednesday that he told the French government ‘to get lost’ when offered a national commemoration.

In an interview with Le Parisien, he said his wife had no time for President Emmanuel Macron’s administration and that she always stuck to her political principles.

‘Tributes weren’t her thing,’ he said. ‘She received the Legion of Honour, but she never went to collect it.’

Many politicians wanted a day of national mourning for the former actress and pop singer, but Mr d’Ormale said: ‘We told them to get lost.’

Neither Macron nor his wife, Brigitte Macron, will be in St Tropez for Bardot’s funeral at the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in St Tropez on Sunday.

Instead her old friend Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate for the far-Right National Rally (NR) party will be the most senior politician there.

D’Ormale is a former advisor to her late father, the founder of the NR, when it was called the Front National.

Some showbiz stars can be expected, but her animal rights foundation has stressed it will be a ‘no frills’ event.

‘The ceremony will reflect who she was, with the people who knew and loved her. There will no doubt be some surprises, but it will be simple, just as Brigitte wanted,’ Bruno Jacquelin, spokesman for the Brigitte Bardot Foundation said. 

The funeral will be shown on public screens in Saint-Tropez for well-wishers and fans who are expected to shrug off brisk winter temperatures to pay a final tribute.

Bardot was a divisive figure who alienated many fans with her anti-immigration and racist political views in later life.

Her death sparked mixed reactions. Observers agreed that she was a cinema legend who came to embody the sexual revolution of the 1960s through her acting and daring, unconventional persona.

But having been convicted five times for hate speech, particularly about Muslims, left-wing figures have offered only muted tributes – and sometimes none at all.

‘To be moved by the fate of dolphins but remain indifferent to the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean – what level of cynicism is that?’ commented Greens lawmaker Sandrine Rousseau about Bardot’s views.

Macron’s office offered to organise a national homage similar to one staged for fellow New Wave hero Jean-Paul Belmondo in 2021, but the president was snubbed by Bardot’s family.

No information has been given about whether Bardot’s only child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, will attend the funeral.

Charrier, 65, was brought up by his father, film director Jacques Charrier, and lives in Oslo.

Bardot wrote in her memoirs that she had wanted an abortion but was prevented from doing so by her then-husband.

She compared pregnancy to carrying a ‘tumour that fed on me’ and called parenthood a ‘misery’, living most of her life estranged from her son, although they drew closer in the final years of her life.

Bardot’s sister Mijanou, 87, who had a brief film career, is not expected to make the trip from her home in Los Angeles.

‘My Brigitte, the one I loved more than anything… now knows the greatest of mysteries. She also knows whether our beloved pets are waiting for us on the other side,’ she wrote on Facebook.

‘My God, please let that be the case so she doesn’t feel alone, but is with them.’

In 2018, Brigitte Bardot had said she wished to be buried in the garden of her home along with her pets to avoid a ‘crowd of idiots’ trampling on the tombs of her parents and grandparents who are in the same cemetery where she will be interred.