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

Emergency services rushed to Brigitte Bardot’s home on Wednesday after she had breathing problems.

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

He told Var matin: ‘It was around 9am when Brigitte was having trouble breathing,’ noting that ambulances in the south of France had initially been given ‘the wrong’ address.

He continued: ‘[Her breathing] was stronger than usual, but she didn’t lose consciousness. Let’s call it a breath distraction moment.”

Bernard confirmed that as soon as emergency services arrived, they gave Bardot, 88, oxygen ‘and watched for a while’.

He said, “Like all people of a certain age, she can no longer stand the heat. It happens at the age of 88. She mustn’t make any useless attempts.’

MailOnline has contacted a Brigitte spokesperson for more information.

Bardot starred in 47 films before she left the film industry in 1973.

Born and raised in Paris, she was an aspiring ballerina before starting to work as a fashion model and actress.

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

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

Bardot rose 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 teamed up in the 1958 film The Night Heaven Fell.

Everything changes: Bardot retired from the film industry in 1973 and now runs an animal shelter in the seaside town of St Tropez on the French Riviera

In 1959, she married Jacques Charrier, and they had a son together, Nicolas, before separating in 1962. Four years later, she married Sachs, but they divorced in 1969.

Since she retired from acting, she is committed to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which is committed to animal protection.

Bardot launched the organization in Saint-Tropez, a coastal town on the French Riviera, in 1986 with money raised from the sale of her jewellery.

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 was fined six times for “inciting racial hatred” with her writings on animal cruelty.

In 2019, she launched a rampant attack against the residents of La Réunion, one of France’s overseas territories spanning the Indo-Pacific and the 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.