The Legacy That Built Me
- Bobbi Billard
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
Updated: Sep 15
They said the sky was the limit. My ancestors didn’t believe them. Neither do I.
Most people know me from the outside... the career I built in front of a camera. From modeling and wrestling to pioneering in the digital space, I’ve always carved my own path. But the truth is… I didn’t start from scratch.
I come from something deeper.
Before I built a name, I came from one.
And I’ve been proving it ever since.
This Is Where I Come From
My family’s story reads more like a historical epic than a traditional genealogy. It begins in 1852 with my ancestor Gilbert Billard, a Frenchman who was exiled after joining an uprising against Napoleon. He was sent to Devil’s Island; one of the most brutal prison colonies in the world. But he escaped.
From there, he made his way to New York, then Kansas. By 1859, he had built a two-room stone house near what would become Topeka; the very city my family helped found.
The Bloodline Behind the Brand
It was the beginning of a legacy... one built on defiance, survival, and starting over.
A generation later, Gilbert’s son, Jules Benoit Billard, would carry that legacy forward. He married Hermance Laurent, the daughter of French political exiles who had also fled Napoleon III’s regime and resettled in Kansas.
Hermance’s sister, Clarisse Madeleine Laurent (1857–1940), became a respected painter who trained at the Académie Julian in Paris, one of the first art schools to admit women on equal footing. Her portraits and still life paintings hang in Kansas museums and historic buildings to this day. Her legacy extends all the way to the Smithsonian, where one of her original works is held in the National Portrait Gallery collection.
Jules went on to serve as mayor of Topeka from 1910 to 1913. Together, the Billard and Laurent families built cities and created beauty.
Their son, my great-great-uncle, Louis Philip Billard, was one of the earliest American aviators. A thrill-seeker from the start, he began racing automobiles before discovering his true calling in the skies. He flew biplanes as a U.S. Army test pilot for the DeHavilland D.H.4 in World War I, when flying itself was still a daredevil act. He tragically died in a dive test over France at just 27 years old. Today, the Philip Billard Municipal Airport in Topeka, Kansas, bears his name in honor of his legacy. The Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Topeka is also named for him.
I come from people who dared to do things before the world was ready for them.
More Than a Name
But perhaps the clearest line between legacy and the woman I am today comes through my father, Philip T. Billard. In 1969, during the Vietnam War, he wrote a letter to Henry Kissinger exposing the dark flaws of the Phoenix Program. He called out manipulated data, inflated body counts, and systemic deception, all in a time when few dared to question authority.
While others stayed silent, he picked up a typewriter and told the truth. And he was brave enough to put it in writing and sign his name.
Kissinger responded personally. My father was invited to meet with the Vietnam team. He stood on truth, not ego... a trait I recognize in myself every time I speak out, stand firm, or take a risk to protect what I believe in.
Born Into It
So no... my story didn’t start with an Instagram post, or a glossy magazine cover, or a courtroom win. It started generations ago. In bloodlines. In bold choices. In people who didn’t ask for permission to do the right thing.
I am the product of whistleblowers, rebels, aviators, artists, and mayors. And while my path is uniquely mine, the fire that fuels it was lit long before I was born.
That’s what legacy really is. Not something you inherit... something you prove worthy of.
And I intend to.
This is who I am,
Bobbi
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