Brigitte Bardot is known for being one of the most popular screen goddesses of all time. In recent years, however, she has devoted her life to helping animals. In her new memoir, Bardot opens up about the negative aspects of being a celebrity, lamenting that it robbed her of the chance to go anywhere without being approached by strangers, many of whom wanted to touch her physically.

“I know what it feels like to be hunted,” Bardot said.

In the end, she says in her book Tears of Battle: An Animal Rights Memoir, Bardot says that it was this feeling of being hunted that brought her closer to animals.

“Humans have hurt me,” she said. “Deeply. And it is only with animals, with nature, that I found peace.”

“The sheer dread … that fills me when I am face-to-face with most humans … made me suffer atrociously during my life as an actress,” Bardot continued. “In the beginning, I enjoyed having people talking about me, but very quickly, it suffocated and destroyed me. Throughout my 20 years starring in movies, each time filming began, I would break out with herpes.”

Bardot cited legendary actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich in saying that many of the screen’s greatest goddesses die alone, and she believes that leaving Hollywood decades ago is why she’s alive today.

“The majority of great actresses met tragic ends,” she explained. “When I said goodbye to this job, to this life of opulence and glitter, images and adoration, the quest to be desired, I was saving my life. This worship of celebrity … suffocated me.”

Bardot talked about men who “didn’t know how to separate the love they felt for me from what I represented in the eyes of the world.” She also opened up about the paparazzi who would stalk her, saying, “I could sense their presence, the watching.”

Even something as simple as going to a restaurant still gives Bardot anxiety.

“People will come up to me,” the actress explained. “They’ll be watching what Brigitte Bardot is eating, how she holds her fork. They will ask for yet another photo. I have never refused. But I still can’t stand being watched. Certain people … want to embrace me, to touch me.”

She feels that many of her greatest achievements have come through the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, the organization she started to help protect animals around the world. Bardot believes that it is working with animals that has given her life new meaning.

“We have financed the construction of a wild animal hospital in Chile, as well as a park to care for mistreated bears in Bulgaria, for koalas in Australia, for elephants in Thailand, and for horses in Tunisia,” she said. “If the foundation wasn’t active, a great many species conservation programmes would be non-existent.”

“In a way, humanity remains like an animal,” Bardot concluded. “It functions as a herd. Man is fundamentally selfish, and most people do not react to a cause unless it directly affects them … I want the public to be indignant, to come out of its comfort zone.”