Under Wraps

How Sandra Kept Adoption Secret

Decoys and dark cars for starters.

Sandra Bullock is one clever mother. She and husband Jesse James took home adoptive son Louis—named for Louis Armstrong—in January and managed to keep the slavering media out of the loop despite being the object of intense scrutiny during awards season and as news of James' infidelities broke. How'd she do it? USA Today reports that Bullock told only a few friends and family members of the news, used decoys and dark cars, kept mum in public, and didn't allow anyone to come to her house for dress fittings. After the scandal broke, she fled Los Angeles with Louis. Plus, being a nice person appears to have paid off—the public and entertainment media like her, perhaps explaining why slip-ups, like the green baby sock that fell out of her purse on the red carpet, went unremarked. As celebrity publicist Howard Bragman put it, "That's amazing, especially in this world, where every orderly or valet will sell their mother for the price of dinner," adding, "It really speaks to the kind of person she is and the kind of people she surrounds herself with." She's savvy, too—breaking the news of Louis has shifted her coverage from divorce to motherhood.