Madonna leaves a gym in northwest London October 18, 2006. Pop star Madonna, speaking publicly for the first time about her adoption of a Malawian boy, said she was disappointed by the controversy it caused and worried it would discourage others from adopting children in Africa.. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Stephen HirdNEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna, speaking publicly for the first time about her adoption of a Malawian boy, said she was disappointed by the controversy it caused and worried it would discourage others from adopting children in Africa.
In an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey to be aired later on Wednesday, Madonna said she was drawn to 1-year-old David when she first saw him in the arms of an 8-year-old girl who was living with HIV/AIDS.
"I became transfixed by him ... but I didn't yet know I was going to adopt him," she told Winfrey, according to extracts from the interview issued on the TV host's Web site.
The American singer said she and her husband, British film director Guy Ritchie, has planned on adopting two years ago, not knowing where they would adopt. She said it was her charity work in Malawi, a Southern African country that has been hard hit by AIDS, that brought them to David.
David had spent most of his life in an orphanage with 500 other children although his father was alive. Madonna said she was told his mother and three siblings had died of AIDS and added, "from my perspective, there was no one looking after David's welfare."
Madonna was granted an interim adoption order by the Malawian government and final approval is expected in 18 months.
The child was flown last week to London to join Madonna at her home in London with her other two children -- daughter Lourdes, 10, and son Rocco, 6.
But the adoption plans sparked a storm of controversy.
Malawian child rights groups, accusing the government of breaking the law in granting an interim adoption order to a non-resident, are challenging the process in court. Critics of the adoption say Madonna used her fame and wealth to fast track the process.
The child's father, Yohane Banda, said at the weekend he never intended his son to be adopted.
CHILD WAS VERY SICK
Madonna said that when she met David he had severe pneumonia and could hardly breathe. She did not want to leave him in the orphanage because the place did not have medicines to treat him.
"We got permission to take him to a clinic to have a bronchial dilator put on him ... He had pneumonia and was given an injection of antibiotics. He's still a little bit ill, not completely free of his pneumonia, but he's much better than he was when we found him," she said.
Madonna said she believed the media had manipulated David's father to say he did not know what he had agreed to.
"I do not believe that is true. I sat in that room, I looked into that man's eyes," Madonna said. "I believe at this point in time, he's been terrorized by the media."
She said she was disappointed by the media controversy.
"I'm disappointed because it discourages other people from doing the same thing -- for anybody who had the idea that they, too, would like to open their home and give a life to a child living in an orphanage who might possibly not live past the age of 5," she said.
"I feel like the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa, period, not just Malawi, by turning it into such a negative thing."