Adopting children can be a wonderful way to grow a family. After all, families come in all shapes and sizes and if there's love in your household, why not invite a child into that safe space?
Celebrities have used their voices to talk about their own experiences with adoption; we compiled some of their discussions.
1. Rosario Dawson
In 2020, Rosario Dawson told Kelly Clarkson, "I told my mom when I was five years old that I was going to adopt, and I was going to adopt older because that was when I found out that my dad is not my biological father. And it just was so amazing to me that he married my mom when she was 18 years old with a one-year-old and raised me as his own."
In 2014, Rosario adopted her daughter Isabella, then 11. Rosario said in a 2021 interview with Parents that Isabella's contact with her biological family was limited and Isabella was taking time before meeting them.
"I've got trauma from growing up in my biological family," Rosario said. "And so these past couple of years, [Isabella has] taught me so much about transforming and developing the benefits of therapy and being really conscious and intentional about self-care and boundaries ... I'm excited for, however, she wants to use that in the world moving forward, whether it is getting more in contact with some of that blood family or creating her own family or whatever it is she wants to do."
2. Lana Condor
At 4 months old, Lana was adopted from Vietnam. She has a brother, also adopted from another adoption agency.
"I love to talk about [adoption]," Lana said to Elle in 2018. "I like to make people feel more comfortable, and it’s great to have this platform and be able to shed light on adoption and how it's a beautiful thing, instead of being tiptoed around. It’s been exciting for my parents as well. I hope that other girls who have been adopted are watching the journey. We can celebrate it. It’s a gift."
3. Nicole Kidman
Kidman and her ex-husband Tom Cruise adopted two children, Connor and Isabella.
"It's very much a part of the whole relationship, so it needs to be addressed [and] discussed I think," Nicole said when asked about her kids wanting to find their birth families. "As parents of adoptive children, the advice for us was, if they want to find their birth parents, you support that."
4. Kristin Chenoweth
Kristen was adopted as a baby and published a children's book about the topic in 2022. She told Today that adopting a puppy sparked the idea. Adoption, she said, is a great option for families.
"I like to call it 'rescue,' and my dad always says, 'Man, did we win the lottery?!'" Kristin said. "I'm like, 'No, I won the lottery.'"
Her parents also were sure to tell Kristen that she was loved.
"They always said, 'The lady that had you in her belly could not take care of you the way she wanted to, and she loved you so much.' And this is what my mom said: 'She gave you life, but we get to give you a life.'"
5. Hugh Jackman
Hugh told People in 2017 that he and his wife, Deborra-Lee, wanted to have biological children but adopted after she had miscarriages.
Hugh and his wife adopted mixed-race children because Hugh said they "knew from talking with people in that space ... that the biggest need is in mixed-race kids.”
He continued, "It doesn't matter what sexual [orientation] you are, it doesn't matter what job you do, it doesn't matter if your hair is straight or curly, if you're tall or short, man or woman, what race you are. What defines you as a human is underneath all that."
6. Faith Hill
Faith was adopted by her parents in Mississippi and said to Good Housekeeping in 2007 that she had a "a loving, positive environment" as a child. She didn't look for her biological parents until she left home.
"There was a period of time when I first moved to Nashville, the first couple of years, that I was just simply lost. That's when I went on the search for my birth family," Faith said in a 2011 In the Spotlight With Robin Roberts interview.
“I have a lot of respect for my birth mother and no feeling of anger or any of that,” Faith said. “I know she must have had a lot of love for me to want to give me what she felt was a better chance.”
7. Viola Davis
In 2015, Viola Davis talked about adopting her daughter with InStyle Magazine. She and husband Julius Tennon took Genesis in as a baby in 2011.
"There are so many ways to mother rather than to carry a child in your body," Viola said. "So many children need parents, and so many of us want to mother. Know that you will experience motherhood to the full extent."
8. Ray Liotta
Ray found his biological mother in 2004. Adopted as an infant, he said that he was upset about the adoption and that meeting her was healing.
"I think it just made me realize that she did the best that she could with me," Ray told Larry King in a 2014 Larry King Now interview. "I used to wear being adopted on my sleeve. 'How could you give up a kid?' That sort of thing. And [I] realize[d] when I met her that ... there were really valid reasons, and then realize[d] that almost 99% of kids that are put up for adoption are always for the betterment of the kid."
9. Madonna
Madonna has four adopted kids, David, Mercy, Estere, and Stella. When she first adopted David, who is from Malawi, she received criticism in the press.
“Every newspaper said I kidnapped him,” Madonna told People in 2017. “In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute. I’m trying to save somebody’s life. Why are you all shitting on me right now?’ I did everything by the book. That was a real low point for me. I would cry myself to sleep.”
After Madonna divorced Guy Ritchie, she struggled to adopt Mercy in 2009, but had a decision denying her application reversed. She then adopted her other two children in 2017.
“It’s complicated, but it’s so worth it," Madonna said.
10. Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx shared in a 2017 episode of Beat Shazam that he was adopted by his grandmother.
"That's not actually my biological grandmother. That's somebody who said, 'I see something in that little boy that's very special,' and she made sure I had every tool that I needed to grow and expand," Jamie said. "I don't like to get emotional like that on camera, but what you don't understand is that, when you're a kid, you just want to be loved."
11. Hoda Kotb
Hola became a mom in 2017 when she adopted her daughter, Haley Joy, with her ex-fiance. They also adopted another daughter named Hope before they seperated.
Hola told Extra in 2021 that motherhood has been a joy.
"I never considered [adoption] until I had to. Families, ... you realize they come in so many different ways," Hoda said on People's Me Becoming Mom podcast in 2021.
"The adoption agency said, 'There's a child out there just for you.' And I believed it then and I believe it today," she added.
12. Snooki
Snooki was adopted at just six months. She said she felt very comfortable with her adoption.
"I was adopted, and I don't really talk about it because I just feel like my family is my family," Snooki told viewers in a 2018 video posted on her YouTube channel. "I never really thought, 'Oh, what's my birth mother like? What's my birth family like?' Because I'm so content with my adopted parents and my adopted life and family."
"In the back of my head I'm always curious to meet my birth family," Snooki said. "I'm definitely interested. I don't know when I'm going to do it, but I'm interested."
13. Lionel Richie
Lionel adopted his daughter Nicole when she was 9 years old. He and his then-wife took Nicole in when her parents, friends of Lionel's, couldn't afford to care for her.
"Nicole was actually a godsend. She was a little girl who needed a shot," Lionel said. "She was used to people coming and going. She looked at me and I'd say, 'I'm not going anywhere.'"
14. Steve Jobs
Author Walter Isaacson used interviews and talks with family and friends of Steve Jobs to explore Jobs' adoption in Isaacson's 2011 book, Steve Jobs. Steve was adopted as a baby and said he always felt loved.
“There’s some notion that because I was abandoned, I worked very hard so I could do well and make my parents wish they had me back, or some such nonsense, but that’s ridiculous,” Steve said, per Considering Adoption. “Knowing I was adopted may have made me feel more independent, but I have never felt abandoned. I’ve always felt special. My parents made me feel special. They were my parents 1,000 percent.”
15. Sandra Bullock
Sandra adopted son Louis in 2010 and daughter Laila in 2015. She shared in a Red Table Talk interview that she just knew adoption was the right move.
"When Louis came into my life, he was put in my arms at 10 days," Sandra said. "I just knew, and I said, 'This is my path.'"
She also addressed how having two Black children has shaped her.
“To say that I wished our skins matched…sometimes I do. Because then it would be easier on how people approached us," Sandra said. “I have the same feelings as a woman with brown skin, and it being her babies. Or a white woman with white babies.
"Maybe one day that will go away. Maybe one day we will be able to see with different eyes.”
16. Keegan-Michael Key
On Off Camera with Sam Jones in 2016, Keegan-Michael explained that some of his personality quirks stem from being adopted.
"I think it goes [comes] from being adopted," Keegan-Michael said. "I think that there's some kind of latent sense of panic that I'm going to get left or something. There's something to it, ... something about that. And then cut to now, and that's why I'm an actor."
He also expressed appreciation for his biological mom's decision.
"Every time I call her, I just go, 'The proof's in the pudding,'" he said. "'You made a selfless act. You chose to do a selfless thing, and look where I am.'"
17. Angelina Jolie
Jolie adopted three children, Maddox, Pax, and Sahara, before having three biological children. In 2020, she talked about raising both adopted and biological kids together in a Vogue India interview.
"All adopted children come with a beautiful mystery of a world that is meeting yours," Angelina said. "When they are from another race and foreign land, that mystery, that gift, is so full. For them, they must never lose touch with where they came from. They have roots that you do not. Honour them. Learn from them. It’s the most amazing journey to share. They are not entering your world, you are entering each other’s worlds."
18. Jordan Fisher
Jordan's grandmother and step grandmother adopted him because his biological mother was just sixteen when she gave birth to him.
“I was blessed to be taken in by two most selfless, loving, caring, beautiful people I’ve ever known,” Jordan told People. “They took me out of any potential environment that would have not been good for me.”
19. Diane Keaton
Diane adopted her daughter Dexter in 1996 and a second child, Duke, in 2001. In a CBS interview with Katie Couric, she shared how adoption changed her life.
"Motherhood is ... by far the best choice I ever made," Diane said. "What can I say? ... It's just too profound."
In 2013, she gave an interview with Extra about the pair.=
"It opens a whole new universe. Every single aspect of your life changes. It' so great, and you become much more community-driven because you meet people you would never meet, which is always better."
The post 19 Times Celebrities Opened Up About Adoption appeared first on The Mother of All Nerds.
19 Times Celebrities Opened Up About Adoption
Source: Pinoy Inquirer News
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