NAMES IN THE NEWS : Bardot Wins Castration Case
A French court ruled today that actress Brigitte Bardot was justified in ordering a gardener to castrate Charly, a donkey left in her care and put out to graze with an old mare.
The court said that the donkey’s owner, Jean-Pierre Manivet, “created a false notoriety” around the case, and fined him the equivalent of $3,300 to be donated to the animal protection foundation that bears the actress’s name.
Bardot, an animal-rights activist once known as the “sex kitten” for her bare appearances in French films, lives here in a large villa surrounded by animals.
Manivet left Charly with Bardot’s gardener in June. But Bardot said that the donkey’s amorous interest in her 32-year-old mare Duchess was excessive and she feared mating could be fatal for the old horse.
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