Why we still care about her
Madonna says she wants to give baby a better life
Madonna says the 13-month-old boy she plans to adopt from Malawi is doing well since she brought him to her home in London last week, that being Madonna didn't help with the adoption and that she chose to adopt an African baby to give the boy, David Banda, a better life.
''I wanted to go into a Third World country . . . and give a life to a child who might not otherwise have had one,'' Madonna said on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" aired Wednesday.
Their conversation, taped Tuesday, was Madonna's first in-depth interview about the adoption, which has been challenged by human rights groups that accuse the singer of using her status to flout the African nation's adoption laws.
(AP)
Malawi's vague adoption laws require prospective parents to stay in the country during an 18-month evaluation period. But the judge who granted an interim custody order Oct. 12 to Madonna and her husband, movie director Guy Ritchie, said the issue of residence isn't specified in the law. A social worker in London is to check on the child for the next 18 months.
A hearing on a lawsuit challenging the decision to allow adoption proceedings to begin is scheduled Friday in Malawi.
Despite having overcome malaria and tuberculosis, ''David is amazing,'' said Madonna, the mother of two -- daughter Lourdes, 9, and son Rocco, 6. ''What really surprises me is how great my children are with him and how he's transitioned so easily from living in Africa in an orphanage to living in our house.''
David's father, Yohane Banda, has said he didn't understand the adoption meant he would give up custody ''for good.'' But in an interview Tuesday on Time magazine's Web site, Banda said, "I don't want my child, who is already gone, to come back. I will be killing his future if I accept that.''
Banda has said he is too poor to raise David, who lived at a 500-child orphanage from the time he was 2 weeks old. The boy's mother died soon after childbirth.
AP