It's National Adoption Week (17-23 October) and to mark the special week, we're celebrating stars who have adopted. Lisa Faulkner, Angelina Jolie and Hugh Jackman all have one thing in common, they have adopted children. Some of the stars struggled to conceive which led them to this different path, whereas others have simply opened their hearts and homes to precious children. Keep scrolling to see celebrities with their adorable adopted kids...
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Lisa Faulkner
Lisa Faulkner has been open about her journey to parenthood. The 48-year-old adopted her daughter Billie, now 14, in 2006 after four rounds of failed IVF treatment, several miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. "It took me a long time for me to go, 'I don’t have to carry a baby to be a mum'. One day you have to let that go," she said. While discussing adoption on Loose Women in 2018, Lisa gushed: "I say she is like my little snowflake, she found me."
Lisa and Billie live with Lisa's husband John Torode, and while she has described her daughter as "my everything", the former Eastenders actress previously revealed she has no plans to go through the adoption process again.
Saira Khan
The Loose Women panellist and her husband Steve have two children, Zac, 12, and Amara, 10. The couple adopted their daughter Amara in 2011 from an orphanage in Pakistan, where Saira’s family is from, having had Zac through IVF two years earlier. Her daughter was taken in by the Edhi Foundation in Karachi after being abandoned as a newborn. The mother-of-two was reduced to tears as she opened up about the process of adopting her daughter. "All I remember is when they put her in my arms, she was mine," Saira said. "That was it. I looked into these eyes, huge eyes, and they were staring back at me like that."
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Saira also told HELLO! in 2018: "Steve and I want to give her the best life. I don’t want her to ever look back and think: ‘Why did my mum and dad not want me?’ We talk about it, and she will say: ‘I’m adopted. I’m from Pakistan,’ and she’s so proud of her heritage."
Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness suffered two miscarriages in the past, but that hasn't stopped them from creating a family. The couple adopted their son Oscar in 2000 and daughter Ava in 2005 in the US after struggling to go through the process in Australia. “From the moment we started the adoption process, all the anxiety went away,” he told Herald Sun in 2011. “I don’t think of them as adopted – they’re our children."
The issue is clearly close to their hearts, as Deborra founded Adopt Change in 2008 in an attempt to make adoption easier in Australia.
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock is a doting mum-of-two after adopting her son Louis in 2010 before giving him a sister, Laila, a couple of years later. "When I look at Laila, there’s no doubt in my mind that she was supposed to be here," Sandra told HELLO! in 2015. "I can tell you absolutely, the exact right children came to me at the exact right time."
The Bird Box actress ensured her son was involved in the journey in 2012. "I didn't want Louis to think for a second that I wanted or needed more than him, because I had everything I needed," explained the star. "Towards the end of the process, I remember sitting Louis down – what I wanted to know was, ‘Is this the right match?’ He said, ‘I think so,’ and I asked why and he just said, ‘Because she’s my sister.’ And they went out and played and I was just sobbing." How sweet!
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Sia
Instead of helping very young children or babies, Sia chose to adopt two teenage sons in 2019. Speaking of the two boys, who are now 19, the Chandelier singer told SiriusXM: "I actually adopted two sons. They were 18, both 19 years old now, they were ageing out of the foster care system and I love them." One of her sons has since gone on to have kids so she's now a grandma!
Madonna
Madonna is mother to two biological children Lourdes Leon and Rocco Ritchie, but she has also adopted another four children from Malawi. The superstar adopted David Banda in 2006 and Mercy James in 2009, before welcoming four-year-old twins Esther and Stella into the family in 2017.
Next to a photo of herself holding the twins' hands, she wrote: "I can officially confirm I have completed the process of adopting twin sisters from Malawi and am overjoyed that they are now part of our family. I am deeply grateful to all those in Malawi who helped make this possible, and I ask the media please to respect our privacy during this transitional time."
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is perhaps one of the most well-known adoptive parents, having welcomed a total of four children into her brood of six: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox and Vivienne. The Hollywood actress adopted her first child, Maddox, from Cambodia in 2002, followed by Zahara from Ethiopia in 2005 and Pax from Vietnam in 2007. Meanwhile, she also shares children Shiloh and twins Knox and Vivienne with her ex-husband Brad Pitt. And we love it when her kids make red carpet appearances, like at the London premiere for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in October 2019!
Charlize Theron
Bombshell actress Charlize Theron's two children Jackson and August were adopted three years apart, in 2012 and 2015 respectively. Although she tends to keep her home life private, she did share a sweet snap of her eldest child wearing a red dress on Instagram in 2019. Explaining Jackson's choice of outfit, she told Daily Mail “Yes, I thought she was a boy, too. Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: ‘I am not a boy!’” Charlize continued: “So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive."
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