A row over the inheritance of late screen legend Brigitte Bardot has intensified after a private letter was made public which appears to show her cutting off relations with her last partner.
Dated November 2022 – three years before she died at her home in Saint Tropez – the hand-written note accuses Bernard de Chiara, her companion of more than 30 years, of "patiently destroying me day after day".
The leaked letter is a useful weapon for the other side in the Bardot legacy battle - the animal rights foundation that bears her name - which is accused by de Chiara of rushing to dispose of her estate without regard for friends and intimates.
A week ago de Chiara, who is 85, was forced to leave the seaside house known as La Madrague which he shared with Bardot from the early 1990s.
After being looked after financially by her for so many years, he is reported to possess neither a bank account nor a social security card.
He was also furious after the Brigitte Bardot Foundation organised a sale in September of household objects mainly taken from the late actress's Paris flat. The sale raised nearly €1m (£835,000), shared between the Foundation and Bardot's only son Nicolas Charrier.
"I found it extraordinary that just a few months after Brigitte's death, they already wanted to make a souvenir out of her. I did not appreciate that one bit," de Chiara said.
In the letter, which begins "Bernard, it's a failure!", Bardot said she had given "everything" in the hope of finding a "companion would could offer back my love, share my joys and immense sorrows... who is happy at the life I am giving him."
But she concluded: "Today I have reached the end-point of my distress... I am so in need of a shoulder, a support, a tenderness, a presence – which you are incapable of giving."
Widely known under the adopted name d'Ormale (a pun on the French dort mal – sleeps badly), de Chiara was a businessman and one-time associate of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
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