Brigitte Bardot's cause of death revealed as her husband shares new details about her final moments

Brigitte Bardot's cause of death has been revealed, with her grieving husband sharing the update ahead of her funeral. 

The iconic French star, who died at 91 in December, had undergone two major operations in the final weeks before her passing. 

According to her husband, Bernard d'Ormale, the screen icon had been battling cancer before her death. 

He told Paris Match magazine his wife of 30 years underwent two procedures to treat a cancer diagnosis.

Bardot had tolerated the surgeries "very well" after being rushed to hospital in late November, Bernard said.

d'Ormale also shared his wife's final words on December 28 before she passed peacefully at home. 

"They were the most moving moment of my life with Brigitte, because she was leaving us," he said. 

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"She said 'pioupiou'. I was half asleep, I sat up and saw that she had stopped breathing."

The two words were her own little way of saying goodbye, which she would often use as a "little word of love" according to a statement from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.

An emotional d'Ormale admitted he saw her suffering "disappear" over the next 15 minutes, adding "she became magnificent". 

Bardot's funeral was held in Saint Tropez, followed by a burial in the "strictest privacy" according to the Associated Press. 

Bardot is survived by her husband, son Nicolas, granddaughters Anna and Théa and several great-grandchildren.

Bardot's parents had serious reservations about her becoming an actress when she first began pursuing a film career at just 15.

It put serious strain on her relationship with them, and according to author Barnett Singer, who wrote the 2013 biography Brigitte Bardot: A Biography, that she already had a difficult home life.

But she went on to become a star.

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie And God Created Woman. Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.

At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolise a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability.

Her tousled, blonde hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France's best-known stars.

But she had more than just a career in the entertainment industry, her passion for animal rights activism was just as sensational.

She travelled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.

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