Chappell Roan is walking back her comments in praise of the late French actress, singer, and sex symbol Brigitte Bardot.
Lesbian singer Roan, known for hits like "Pink Pony Club," "Hot to Go," and "The Subway," praised the late French icon following Bardot's passing at 91 this week, saying Bardot inspired one of her popular songs. Now, Roan has apologized upon learning about Bardot's political views.
While Bardot was known as a boundary-breaking sex symbol of the 50s and 60s, after she retired from acting, she became a fervent animal rights activist. But she also routinely spoke out against immigrants, Muslims, gay people, and victims of sexual harassment.
Chappell Roan's tribute to Brigitte Bardot
@chappellroan on Instagram
In the story, Roan says, "She was my inspiration for red wine supernova. Rest in peace Ms. Bardot."
Roan's hit song "Red Wine Supernova" opens with the lyric, "She was a Playboy, Brigitte Bardot / She showed me things I didn't know."
Bardot has a long and unfortunate history of political speech that includes hatred toward marginalized people. In 2021, she was handed her sixth fine by French courts for "inciting racial hatred."
After being fined twice before in 1997 and 1998, Bardot was fined 30,000 francs for inciting racial hatred based on a book she wrote that criticized Muslims' ritual killing of sheep and lamented that "my country, France, my homeland, my land is again invaded by an overpopulation of foreigners, especially Muslims."
Bardot's fourth fine came in 2004 for another book she wrote in which she said she "opposed the Islamisation of France" and spoke out against racial mixing.
The book "contained a section attacking what she called the mixing of genes and praised previous generations who, she said, had given their lives to push out invaders," according to the BBC.
She received her sixth fine for inciting racial hatred in 2021, after saying the Hindu Tamil population of the French island La Reunion is "natives who still have savage genes" who are still using the "cannibalism of past centuries."
Bardot's political opinions weren't limited to immigrants and Muslims.
In her 2003 book, A Cry in the Silence, Bardot called gay people "cheap f*ggots or circus freaks" and said contemporary gays should be more like the LGBTQ+ community in the 50s and 60s who kept their sexuality a secret. She said current gay men "jiggle their bottoms, put their little fingers in the air, and with their little castrato voices moan about what those ghastly heteros put them through."
In 2018, she criticized the #MeToo movement, saying "the vast majority" of women accusing men "are being hypocritical and ridiculous."
"Lots of actresses try to play the tease with producers to get a role," she said. "And then so we will talk about them, they say there were harassed... I was never the victim of sexual harassment. And I found it charming when men told me I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside."
Chappell Roan's apology for praising Brigitte Bardot
@chappellroan on Instagram
Now, Roan has issued an apology in her Instagram stories.
The new story reads, "Holy shit i did not know all that insane shit Ms. Bardot stood for obvs I do not condone this. very disappointing to learn."
