Brigitte Bardot, 88, suffers breathing issues as emergency services rush to her home

Emergency services rushed to the home of Brigitte Bardot on Wednesday after she suffered some difficulties breathing.

The French actress’s husband, Bernard d’Ormale, confirmed the news and clarified what happened shortly after the incident occurred at their Saint-Tropez residence.

He told Var-matin: ‘It was around 9 a.m. when Brigitte had trouble breathing,’ noting that ambulances in the south of France initially ‘got the wrong’ address.

He continued: ‘[Her breathing] was stronger than usual but she did not lose consciousness. Let’s call it a moment of respiratory distraction.’

Bernard confirmed that once emergency services, arrived, they put Bardot, 88, on oxygen ‘and stayed to watch her’ for a while.

He said: ‘Like all people of a certain age, she can no longer bear the heat. It happens at 88 years old. She must not make useless efforts.’

MailOnline has contacted a spokesperson for Brigitte for further information. 

Bardot starred in 47 films before she quit the movie industry in 1973.

Born and raised in Paris, she was an aspiring ballerina before she started working as a fashion model and actress.

Bardot was just 15 when she graced the cover of Elle magazine in 1950, which launched her acting career. Shortly after, she met her first husband, filmmaker Roger Vadim, at an audition.

She didn’t get the role, but she and Vadim fell madly in love. Despite the initial disapproval of her family, they married in 1952, when she was 18 and he was 24.

Bardot shot to fame and became an international sex symbol after playing a sexually liberated young woman in the 1956 film And God Created Woman.

She and Vadim divorced the following year, but they went on to work together in the 1958 movie The Night Heaven Fell.

In 1959, she tied the knot with Jacques Charrier, and they had a son, Nicolas, together before splitting up in 1962. Four years later, she wed Sachs, but they divorced in 1969.

Since retiring from acting, she has devoted herself to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which is dedicated to animal protection.

Bardot launched the organization in Saint-Tropez, a coastal town on the French Riviera, in 1986 with money raised from selling off her jewelry.

The actress-turned-animal rights activist has been married to far-right political aide d’Ormale since 1992.

Bardot has become a controversial figure in recent years and has been fined six times for ‘inciting racial hatred’ with her writings about animal abuse.

In 2019, she launched a rambling attack against the inhabitants of La Reunion, one of France’s overseas territories spread across the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean, in response to what she saw as their mistreatment of animals.

Bardot called the Indian Ocean islanders ‘savages’ and was later fined €20,000, about $23,000, by a French court in 2021.