A little over a week after 100 prominent French women signed a letter calling the #MeToo movement a “witch hunt” against men, actress Brigitte Bardot has decided to weigh in with her own thoughts on the push against sexual harassment, and rather than join the ranks, Bardot decried the movement, slamming the women who have come forward to share their stories, reports Vanity Fair.
“The vast majority are being hypocritical and ridiculous,” she told the French magazine Paris Match, as translated by FRANCE 24.
Bardot, who is 83, noted that “lots of actresses try to play the tease with producers to get a role. And then, so we will talk about them, they say they were harassed . . . I was never the victim of sexual harassment. And I found it charming when men told me that I was beautiful or I had a nice little backside.”
This isn’t the first time Bardot has shared a controversial, harmful opinion. In the past, she has been fined for provoking discrimination and racial hatred against the Muslim community in France.
Over the last few months, many actresses have shared stories about the unequal power dynamic in the film industry, and several have revolved around meetings with producers that amounted more or less to an aggressive flirting session. Ellen Pompeo summed up the problem well in a recent piece for The Hollywood Reporter, saying that she once took a meeting with now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein where she largely batted her eyelashes and tried to charm him. It’s part of a sordid tradition for aspiring stars, she claimed: “You think, ‘Not only do I have to show that I’m a good actress, but that director also has to in some way fall in love with me and at least become enamored with me.’ That never felt right or good to me.”