A bitter legal and personal feud surrounding the legacy of iconic French silver screen star and lifelong animal welfare advocate Brigitte Bardot has reached a fever pitch, following the unplanned public release of a scathing handwritten 2022 letter that appears to document her total break with Bernard de Chiara, her partner of more than three decades. Dated November 2022 — three full years before Bardot passed away at her iconic Saint-Tropez waterfront property La Madrague in late December 2025 — the missive opens bluntly with the line “Bernard, it’s a failure!”, and accuses de Chiara of “patiently destroying me day after day” during their decades-long bond. In the note, Bardot pours out that she had poured every possible resource and affection into the relationship in the hope of finding a steady, reciprocal partner who could share both her greatest joys and deepest personal griefs, but concludes that she had reached the absolute end of her emotional rope, starved of the tenderness, reliable support and steady presence that de Chiara was never able to provide.
Widely known publicly by the stage name Bernard d’Ormale — a playful French pun that translates loosely to “sleeps poorly” — de Chiara is a former businessman with past ties to longtime far-right French political figure Jean-Marie Le Pen. Though the pair held an unofficial marriage ceremony in Norway, the union was never formally registered under French law, and close acquaintances confirm their relationship was marked by frequent periods of turbulence and reconciliation. Still, de Chiara remained by Bardot’s side through her final days, providing end-of-life care in the months leading up to her death.
The leaked document has emerged as a critical piece of leverage for the opposing party in the inheritance dispute: the eponymous Brigitte Bardot Foundation, the animal rights nonprofit that the actress dedicated the majority of her post-acting life to building after she retired from cinema in 1973. The foundation, which currently oversees care for more than 13,000 rescued animals across France, has faced fierce pushback from de Chiara, who claims the organization is rushing to liquidate Bardot’s personal assets without any consideration for the late star’s long-term close friends and inner circle.
Just one week before the letter became public, 85-year-old de Chiara was formally evicted from La Madrague, the cliffside Mediterranean villa he had shared with Bardot since the early 1990s. Local reports indicate that after decades of being fully financially supported by Bardot, de Chiara currently has no active bank account and no valid French social security documentation, leaving him in an extremely precarious financial position. He has also publicly condemned the foundation for hosting a September public sale of personal belongings pulled primarily from Bardot’s Paris apartment, an event that raised nearly €1 million (£835,000) in total proceeds, split evenly between the foundation and Bardot’s only son, Nicolas Charrier, who lives a quiet, private life in Oslo, Norway. “I found it absolutely unthinkable that barely months after Brigitte was gone, they were already trying to turn her personal belongings into mass-produced souvenirs. I did not accept that at all,” de Chiara stated in a recent press interview.
Bardot’s posthumously released will, which made no provision for de Chiara at all, split her entire estate evenly between the Brigitte Bardot Foundation and Charrier, and included a strict clause requiring La Madrague to be fully vacated within six months of her passing. As a team of court-appointed lawyers works to compile a complete, verified inventory of the late actress’s total assets, foundation president Max Guazzini told reporters Tuesday that the organization suspects de Chiara removed several high-value items from La Madrague during his final weeks in the home, including her classic Mini Moke utility jeep. “I am not formally accusing him of theft, but the vehicle is gone, and that is a serious problem,” Guazzini clarified.
The foundation maintains that de Chiara holds no legal entitlement to any portion of Bardot’s estate outside of a potential minor shared stake in the Paris apartment, which is currently listed for sale. For the time being, de Chiara is residing in a low-cost apartment rented to him by the Saint-Tropez municipal government. “On a basic human level, anyone can understand why he would be reluctant to leave a home he lived in for 30 years,” Guazzini acknowledged, “but this is the law, and it is exactly what Brigitte explicitly requested. It is not our fault that she chose not to leave him a legal right to stay there. What other choice did we have?”
Foundation leadership has noted that the exorbitant ongoing costs of maintaining both La Madrague and Bardot’s secondary hilltop property La Garrigue, both of which were in severe disrepair at the time of her death and now require 24-hour on-site security, mean the organization must develop revenue-generating plans for the two properties to sustain its animal welfare work. An earlier proposal to convert La Madrague into a permanent public museum was scrapped entirely due to the site’s remote, car-inaccessible location; instead, leadership is now evaluating plans to open the villa for limited guided public tours, as well as to rent it out as a location for high-end fashion shoots and independent film productions.
Brigitte Bardot inheritance row deepens after private letter to partner leaked
