“I'm naughty, you know, I want you”: Brigitte Bardot's very intimate letters to Jacques Charrier fail to sell at auction

Brigitte Bardot’s love letters to her second husband, Jacques Charrier, failed to find a buyer this Tuesday at Christie’s in Paris. Estimated between 100,000 and 150,000 euros, this handwritten correspondence, containing passionate declarations, painful confidences, and particularly erotic passages, did not reach its reserve price. The bidding stopped at 55,000 euros excluding fees, far below the seller’s expectations.

“I slide over your belly down to your sex”: unreserved declarations

The lot offered for sale included 19 handwritten letters, totaling 53 pages, written from 1959 into the early 1960s. Brigitte Bardot had addressed them to Jacques Charrier, whom she married in June 1959 and with whom she was expecting her son Nicolas, born on January 11, 1960.

These letters reveal a particularly passionate Brigitte Bardot. In one of them, the actress writes to her husband: “I’m naughty, you know, I want you…”, before continuing with explicit descriptions of her desire.

She notably mentions the caresses she wishes to give him: “I slide over your belly down to your sex,” then concludes her declaration with these words: “Make love to me, Teddy, I love you, I love you.”

In photographs of the documents, one can see yellowed sheets covered with handwriting in pink or blue ink, sometimes accompanied by small flower drawings. One envelope simply bears the name Jacques Charrier, written and underlined in pink ink.

“If you leave me, I die”: behind the passion, deep distress

The letters do not only contain love declarations. Brigitte Bardot also expresses her anxieties, loneliness, and fear of losing Jacques Charrier.

Pregnant at the time, the actress struggled with media pressure and her husband’s long absences, who was mobilized for military service during the Algerian War. She spent much of her pregnancy sheltered from photographers in her Paris apartment.

In one of her letters, she writes to him: “If you leave me I die”. In another, she confides: “I’m fed up with everything, especially myself. I find myself heavy, annoying, soft, and ugly.”

The correspondence thus reflects a relationship marked by contradictory feelings, between romantic desire, emotional dependence, and psychological suffering. Brigitte Bardot repeatedly mentions death and her despair when separated from her husband.

A passionate marriage ending in divorce

Brigitte Bardot and Jacques Charrier met in 1958 on the set of the film Babette Goes to War, directed by Christian-Jaque. They married on June 18, 1959, while the actress was at the height of her fame.

Their son Nicolas-Jacques was born a few months later, on January 11, 1960. But their marriage quickly deteriorated amid personal difficulties, media pressure, and psychological problems. The couple divorced in 1963 after four years of union.

Jacques Charrier obtained custody of their son. Relations between the former spouses remained conflictual for several decades, especially after the publication of Brigitte Bardot’s autobiography, Initiales B.B., and revelations about their married life.

Jacques Charrier had already reproduced some excerpts of this correspondence in his book My Response to Brigitte Bardot, published in 1997.

Estimated up to 150,000 euros, the letters remain unsold

Despite Brigitte Bardot’s fame and the exceptionally personal nature of these documents, the bids did not reach the hoped-for amount.

Christie’s had set an estimate between 100,000 and 150,000 euros for the 19 letters. This Tuesday, offers did not exceed 55,000 euros excluding fees. The reserve price, meaning the confidential minimum amount required to conclude the sale, was not met, so the lot remained unsold.

This sale followed another dispersal of items that belonged to the actress. In September, nearly 300 personal effects of Brigitte Bardot were auctioned at Hôtel Drouot⁠, including jewelry, clothing, drawings, furniture, and her typewriter.

The 19 letters addressed to Jacques Charrier, preserved more than 60 years after their writing, therefore did not change ownership following Tuesday’s sale.