"I have to live with both my selves as best I may"
About this Quote
A movie star admitting she has more than one “self” sounds like vanity until you remember what Brigitte Bardot actually was: not just an actress, but a global projection surface. “I have to live with both my selves as best I may” lands as a weary negotiation between the private person and the public artifact, the Bardot who wakes up in the morning and the Bardot the world insists on consuming.
The line’s power is its plainness. No poetry, no glamour, just the grammar of coping: “have to,” “as best I may.” That phrasing strips away agency. This isn’t self-invention; it’s damage control. The “both” is doing the heavy lifting, suggesting a split that can’t be healed, only managed. One self is continuous and ordinary; the other is assembled by cameras, headlines, desire, and moral panic. Bardot became iconic in an era when celebrity was industrializing fast: postwar mass media, paparazzi, the sexual revolution, and a public eager to treat a woman’s body as both liberation symbol and civic problem.
Subtext: the public self isn’t merely a mask; it’s an occupying force. When she says “live with,” she implies cohabitation with something intrusive, like a roommate who never leaves. It also hints at why Bardot’s later retreat from acting and turn toward activism felt less like a career pivot than an escape attempt. The quote reads like a small, controlled confession from someone who learned early that fame doesn’t just amplify you; it duplicates you, then demands you answer for the copy.
The line’s power is its plainness. No poetry, no glamour, just the grammar of coping: “have to,” “as best I may.” That phrasing strips away agency. This isn’t self-invention; it’s damage control. The “both” is doing the heavy lifting, suggesting a split that can’t be healed, only managed. One self is continuous and ordinary; the other is assembled by cameras, headlines, desire, and moral panic. Bardot became iconic in an era when celebrity was industrializing fast: postwar mass media, paparazzi, the sexual revolution, and a public eager to treat a woman’s body as both liberation symbol and civic problem.
Subtext: the public self isn’t merely a mask; it’s an occupying force. When she says “live with,” she implies cohabitation with something intrusive, like a roommate who never leaves. It also hints at why Bardot’s later retreat from acting and turn toward activism felt less like a career pivot than an escape attempt. The quote reads like a small, controlled confession from someone who learned early that fame doesn’t just amplify you; it duplicates you, then demands you answer for the copy.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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