Brigitte Bardot celebrates 80th birthday in Saint-Tropez

"I don't want anything at all" Brigitte Bardot said according to writer Henry-Jean Servat who is a close friend.

Rather than gifts, Bardot speaking on Europe 1 radio, asked her fans "to go to the nearest shelter and adopt a little cat or dog, or sponsor it" and also "to eat less meat".

Admirers left some 250 bouquets of flowers outside her house in Saint-Tropez on Sunday while she celebrated her birthday in private with a few friends and her husband.

"The foundation is my life" said Bardot who retreated from the spotlight more than 40 years ago to become animal rights defender.

For her birthday Karl Lagerferld sent her a "monumental" basket of orchids with an "extremly big" donation to her Brigitte Bardot Fondation, the organisation said.

"You are wonderful! You are mad!" said Bardot in a tweet about Lagerfeld.

Although she usually shuns the spotlight, Bardot made a brief appearance on Friday on the "Brigitte Bardot" trimaran of the Sea Shepherds environmental group in the port of Saint-Tropez. 

The octogenarian sex icon said she had no intention of retiring, "You haven't heard the last of me (...) and when I am no longer there, my foundation will continue, I made sure it will last for a thousand years!"