A lot of celebrities choose to adopt children from foreign countries. Apparently the practice of adopting from another country is easier than domestic adoption and there’s less of a chance of the child’s birth parents wanting to claim the child back someday. Here are 9 celebrities who adopted children from foreign countries.
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Madonna
Madonna has a total of six children, four of who are adopted from foreign countries. Her biological children are Lourdes, 20, who she had with Carlos Leon and Rocco, 16, who she had with her now ex-husband Guy Ritchie. All four of her other children were adopted from Malawi. She recently adopted four-year-old twins Stella and Esther and had previously adopted David Banda (now 11) in 2006 and Mercy James (also now 11) in 2009.
2. Angelina Jolie
Angelina has six children with ex-husband Brad Pitt, the first three of whom were adopted. They adopted Maddox Chivan (now 15) from Cambodia back in 2001, then Pax Thien (now 13) from Vietnam in 2003 and Zahara Marley (now 12) from Ethopia in 2005. They would then go on to have three children together: Shiloh Nouvel was born in 2006 and twins Knox Léon and Vivienne Marcheline were born in 2008.
3. Julie Andrews
Julie and her late husband Blake Edwards, a film director, adopted two orphans from Vietnam, Joanna and Amy, in the 70s.
4. Meg Ryan
Meg adopted her daughter Daisy True (now 11) from China back in 2006 and also has a biological son, Jack Quaid (now 24), who she had with Dennis Quaid.
5. Katherine Heigl
Katherine and her husband Josh Kelley adopted Nancy Leigh Mi-Eun from South Korea in 2009 and in 2012 they adopted Adelaide Marie Hope from the US. In 2016 the couple had their first child together, Joshua Bishop Kelley, Jr.
6. Ewan McGregor
Ewan and his wife Eve Mavrakis have a total of four daughters, two of whom are adopted. In 2008 they adopted Jamiyan from Mongolia and would go on to adopt another daughter, Annouk, in 2011.
7. Elizabeth Taylor
The late actress, who got married eight times to seven different men, had a total of four children, one of whom was adopted. She adopted a German orphan called Maria with fifth husband Richard Burton; by this time she already had two sons with second husband Michael Wilding and a daughter with third husband Michael Todd.
8. Mia Farrow
Perhaps the most prolific adopter of children from overseas is Mia Farrow, who has had a total of 14 children, 10 of whom were adopted; three of her adopted children have passed away. Four of her adopted children were from Vietnam and two from South Korea.
9. Emma Thompson
Emma and her husband Greg Wise have one daughter together and adopted a son, Tindyebwa, a former child soldier and orphan from Rwanda.