Madonna is currently seeking out a sibling for her first adopted son, David Banda, from Malawi. The Material Mom has returned to the country and is going through adoption procedures to adopt Mercy James, a four-year-old orphan to go home with her two children, Lourdes Leon and Rocco Ritchie.
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / AP Photo
Brad and Angelina have an ever-expanding clan of six children, three of whom were adopted. Their international trio—Maddox from Cambodia, Zahara from Ethiopia, and Pax from Vietnam—may get a new addition soon if recent reports that Jolie is looking to adopt another child are true. This time from India.
Fame Pictures
Before Angelina, Mia Farrow was the poster child for serial adoption. With her second husband Andre Previn, Farrow adopted two Vietnamese children, Lark Song and Summer Song, and two years later adopted her daughter, Soon-Yi, from Korea. During her relationship with Woody Allen, the couple adopted Moses and Dylan. Farrow broke off their romance after it was discovered that Allen was having a relationship with Soon-Yi, to whom he’s now married. Farrow later adopted six additional children.
David Mcgough, DMI, Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
Nearly a decade after she inherited a daughter in Baby Boom, Diane Keaton adopted two children: Dexter, in 1996 and Duke, in 2001. Sixty-three-year-old Keaton explained her reasons for adopting late in life last year. "I wanted to be in a good relationship. Those good relationships that are strong and substantive never happened for me, and that prolonged my indecisiveness.”
London Entertainment, Splash / Newscom
Hugh Jackman and wife Deborra-Lee Furness have been married for nine years and have two adopted children, Oscar Maximillian, and daughter Ava Eliot. The process was not without complications. The Aussie couple found that laws Down Under can often stall an adoption for up to six years, so they came to the U.S. where the adoptions took only nine months.
Splash News / Newscom
Everyone’s favorite child star-turned-evangelist Kirk Cameron has six children with his wife, Chelsea. They adopted the first four, Jack, Isabella, Anna, and Luke, and rounded out their family when Chelsea gave birth to two more. Chelsea spoke highly of their decision, saying “We want to adopt our first ones so they would always know they were our first choice—that they were our first babies.”
Jean-Paul Aussenard, WireImage / Getty Images
In 1993 the now-divorced Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman adopted their first child, Isabella Jane Cruise, in Florida, though they lived in California. As with most things involving Cruise, this created a good deal of controversy, as tabloids speculated that the Church of Scientology had expedited the adoption. In 1995 the couple would adopt another child, Connor Anthony. Connor made his big-screen debut last year playing a young Will Smith in the box-office bomb Seven Pounds.
Patrick Riviere / Getty Images
George Lucas, the man behind the Star Wars franchise adopted three young Jedi, beginning in 1981 when he was still married to his wife, Maria. The first was Amanda in 1981, next came Katie and lastly, a boy, Jett, in 1993. All three appeared in Lucas’s Star Wars prequels.
Chris Carlson / AP Photo
The Queen of Nice is one of the most outspoken advocates for allowing same-sex couples to adopt. Rosie O’Donnell and her wife, Kelli Carpenter, have three adopted children—Parker, Chelsea, and Blake—whose antics frequently provided anecdotes on O’Donnell’s long-running talk show. Carpenter also gave birth to their fourth child, Vivienne Rose, in 2002.
Scott Wintrow / Getty Images
Hollywood legend Joan Crawford adopted five children during her lifetime, but her most famous relationship was with daughter Christina, whose Mommie Dearest tell-all accused her mother of physical and emotional abuse. Christina maintains that celebrities who adopt do it for the publicity: “I have tremendous concerns about celebrity adoptions by people like Madonna and Angelina Jolie…From the adoptee's point of view, it is vitally important to know who they are, where they came from, or it can have profound medical and psychological effects.”
M. Garrett, Murray Garrett / Getty Images
