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Expanding their families. Thomas Rhett, Lauren Akins and more celebrity parents have opened up about their adoption experiences.
The country singer and his childhood sweetheart adopted daughter Willa from Uganda in May 2017, just three months before Akins gave birth to daughter Ada. Lennon joined their family in February 2020.
“My heart has always been driven to that,” the Live in Love author exclusively told Us Weekly of adopting her eldest in January 2018. “It just started as this calling in my life, to speak for these children who don’t have a voice. This is what I was really here to do. It lined up perfectly with my heart. I had always wanted to adopt. My mom is actually adopted. I am a product of an adopted family. So, it has always been something that has been very natural for me.”
The former nurse was “drawn” to Willa when they first met, she added at the time. “I just tell everyone she was always my baby. It just took us a little bit longer to find each other. I called Thomas one of the first nights I met her in Uganda and told him about her. Without hesitation he said, ‘Bring her home. She is ours. We are going to make this happen.’”
Rhett is a big fan of being a girl dad and exclusively told Us in October 2019 that he was “born for” the role. “I love it,” the Grammy nominee gushed. “I love doing their hair, and I love playing the Barbies with them, whatever they want me to do, tea parties. It’s just been awesome to get to be a dad of two beautiful girls and a third one on the way.”
As for Sia, the “Elastic Heart” singer revealed in May 2020 that she had adopted two teenage boys the year prior.
“They were both 18, and they’re both 19 years old now,” the Aussie said during an episode of SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up. “They’re both doing things that are really good for them right now, that are really helpful. They’re really doing a lot of educational stuff that’s good for them.”
The new mom added that her sons were “aging out of the foster care system” when they met and she “love[s] them.”
Keep scrolling to see more celebrity parents who have detailed their decisions to adopt over the years, from Real Housewives of Dallas’ Brandi Redmond to Today’s Hoda Kotb.
Credit: Courtesy of Lauren Akins/Instagram
Celebrities Who Have Adopted Children: Angelina Jolie, Thomas Rhett and More
Expanding their families. Thomas Rhett, Lauren Akins and more celebrity parents have opened up about their adoption experiences.
The country singer and his childhood sweetheart adopted daughter Willa from Uganda in May 2017, just three months before Akins gave birth to daughter Ada. Lennon joined their family in February 2020.
“My heart has always been driven to that,” the Live in Love author exclusively told Us Weekly of adopting her eldest in January 2018. “It just started as this calling in my life, to speak for these children who don’t have a voice. This is what I was really here to do. It lined up perfectly with my heart. I had always wanted to adopt. My mom is actually adopted. I am a product of an adopted family. So, it has always been something that has been very natural for me.”
The former nurse was “drawn” to Willa when they first met, she added at the time. “I just tell everyone she was always my baby. It just took us a little bit longer to find each other. I called Thomas one of the first nights I met her in Uganda and told him about her. Without hesitation he said, ‘Bring her home. She is ours. We are going to make this happen.'”
Rhett is a big fan of being a girl dad and exclusively told Us in October 2019 that he was “born for” the role. “I love it,” the Grammy nominee gushed. “I love doing their hair, and I love playing the Barbies with them, whatever they want me to do, tea parties. It’s just been awesome to get to be a dad of two beautiful girls and a third one on the way.”
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As for Sia, the “Elastic Heart” singer revealed in May 2020 that she had adopted two teenage boys the year prior.
“They were both 18, and they’re both 19 years old now,” the Aussie said during an episode of SiriusXM’s The Morning Mash Up. “They’re both doing things that are really good for them right now, that are really helpful. They’re really doing a lot of educational stuff that’s good for them.”
The new mom added that her sons were “aging out of the foster care system” when they met and she “love[s] them.”
Keep scrolling to see more celebrity parents who have detailed their decisions to adopt over the years, from Real Housewives of Dallas’ Brandi Redmond to Today’s Hoda Kotb.
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Thomas Rhett
“I can’t believe our daughter is finally home,” the country crooner tweeted following Willa’s adoption. “Thank you to everyone who prayed every single day for this sweet girl.”
The songwriter’s wife, Lauren Akins, reflected on the experience in an April 2022 appearance on Where We Started Radio with Thomas Rhett on Apple Music Country. “It scared me to death because I wasn’t really sure what this look[ed] like. ‘Are we ready for this? Are we going to be good parents? What if we totally screw this up?’” the Live in Love author recalled at the time. “But there is a reason why every child is a child of their parents, and I know that Willa Gray was meant to be in our family, just like every kid is meant to be in their own family”
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Neve Campbell
The Scream star welcomed son Radnor in 2018, telling Kelly Clarkson four years later that she told him about his adoption “from the beginning” and it is “no surprise” to the little one. “He knows he was in [his birth mother] Cynthia’s tummy. She made him,” the actress explained during the January 2022 Kelly Clarkson Show appearance. “She actually made an entire album for him of photos of herself and things about her life and things that she likes.”
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Sheryl Crow
The singer told Redbook that her split with Lance Armstrong inspired her to adopt son Wyatt in 2007. “I started doing an adoption ‘home study,'” she explained in July. “The idea was, if the opportunity came, I would be ready.” Crow later adopted another son, Levi James, in 2010.
In October 2021, Crow told Hoda Kotb that she “got a lot of things out of [her] system” before adopting her kids, saying, “There wasn’t anything that I felt like I was missing. If I stayed home and something was going on, I just didn’t feel like I was missing anything, that I wanted to be anywhere else, and that’s a gift.”
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Hoda Kotb
The Today show cohost adopted daughters Haley and Hope in February 2017 and April 2019, respectively. “One of the best things is when people come up and say, ‘I’m adopting. I thought it was too late for me, too,’” the journalist exclusively told Us of her decision in August 2018. “I’m moved to tears. I’ve made so many choices, but none was more important or monumental. It’s the best one, and I just saved it for later in my life.”
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Barbara Walters
After the View host suffered three miscarriages in the ’60s with then-husband Lee Guber, Walters adopted a baby girl named Jackie Dena. “That ‘real parent’ is really a horrible label, because what makes a parent is not necessarily who gives birth to you,” Jackie later told 20/20.
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Mia Farrow
In addition to her four biological children, the actress has adopted seven kids — Soon-Yi (adopted 1977), Summer (adopted 1976), Moses (adopted 1980), Dylan (adopted 1985), Isaiah (adopted 1992), Quincy (adopted 1994), and Frankie (adopted 1995).
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Lionel Richie
The singer was named Nicole Richie‘s guardian in 1983. Seven years later, he and then-wife Brenda Harvey legally adopted her. “All she needed was applied love and the rest of it just blossomed,” Richie, who is also the father of Sofia and Miles, explained in a BBC interview in 2007.
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Michelle Pfeiffer
Before meeting husband David E. Kelly, the actress adopted daughter Claudia Rose in 1993. “I’d sort of thought that maybe a husband and children weren’t on the cards for me,” Pfeiffer, who gave birth to son John in 1994, told Hello in 2008. “But…it occurred to me that I could go ahead with the family bit on my own.”
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Rosie O’Donnell
In addition to Vivienne Rose (conceived through artificial insemination with ex Kelli Carpenter), O’Donnell has four adopted children: Parker Jaren (born in 1995), Chelsea Belle (born in 1997), Blake Christopher (born in 1999) and Dakota (born in 2013).
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Kirstie Alley
The actress and ex-husband Parker Stevenson adopted son William True in 1992 and Lillie Price in 1994. “My kids aren’t going to be entitled or get anything they want in life,” Alley said in March. “They’re going to earn it. “
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Jamie Lee Curtis
The actress and husband Christopher Guest have two adopted adult children, daughter Annie and son Tom. “Adoption is an issue for everybody at all stages,” Curtis, who wrote the 1996 children’s book Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born about adoption, told Ladies Home Journal. “There’s tremendous loss and great love and great warmth.”
Read Related Also: Riley Keough Comes From A Very Famous Family
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Calista Flockhart
The Brothers & Sisters star adopted a son, Liam, in 2001 before meeting husband Harrison Ford. “Motherhood changed every fiber of my being,” Flockhart told Britain’s Daily Telegraph in 2007. “I can honestly say it brought me as close as I’ve ever come to being really happy.”
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Tom Cruise
“Nic and I are doing a terrific job,” Cruise told Oprah Winfrey in 2005 of raising adoptive children Bella and Connor with ex-wife Nicole Kidman. “I’m really proud with how we’re raising the kids. I think we’re both really proud.” (He is also the father of daughter Suri with Katie Holmes, while Kidman shares Sunday and Faith with Keith Urban.)
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Hugh Jackman
After the actor’s wife Deborra-Lee Furness had two miscarriages, the couple decided to meet with an adoption agency. They now have two adopted children: Oscar Maximillian (born in 2000) and Ava Eliot (born in 2005).
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Angelina Jolie
In addition to three biological children, exes Jolie and Brad Pitt share three adoptive children: Maddox (born in 2001), Pax (born in 2003) and Zahara (born in 2005). “We’re very much a united front,” Jolie tells Us of her and Pitt’s parenting ahead of their 2016 split. “They can’t get Mommy to do something Daddy wouldn’t.”
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Edie Falco
The Nurse Jackie star adopted son Anderson in March 2005 and daughter Macy in April 2008. “I’m just not one of those people who thought having biological children was important,” Falco told Parade in 2009. “To me it was more about wanting to raise a child.”
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Meg Ryan
Though she originally named her daughter Charlotte when she adopted her from China in 2006, Ryan later changed her name to Daisy True. “I am convinced, completely convinced that there was nothing random about [the adoption],” Ryan, who is also the mother of son Jack, told Redbook in 2007. “She is the daughter I should have.”
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Mary-Louise Parker
The Weeds star split from actor Billy Crudup in 2003 when she was pregnant with their son, Will, and adopted daughter Caroline Aberash Parker four years later.
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Katherine Heigl
The actress and husband Josh Kelley adopted daughter Naleigh from South Korea in 2009. “My sister is Korean,” Heigl tells W magazine. “I hope one day she and Naleigh will be able to talk about what it’s like to be adopted.” The couple adopted Adalaide in 2012, and Heigl gave birth to son Joshua four years later.
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Madonna
The Material Girl adopted David Banda in 2006 and Mercy James in 2009, followed by twins Esterre and Stella in 2017, all from Malawi. “My house is like a Benetton ad,” the singer, who is also the mother of Rocco and Lourdes, joked to Rolling Stone in October 2009. “It’s wonderful. I love it.”
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Sandra Bullock
The Oscar winner adopted son Louis Bardo, born in January 2010, from New Orleans. “He’s a little Cajun cookie,” she gushed on NBC’s Today show in August. Joining a family of mainly women, Bullock joked that her son “is like the crown prince.” She adopted daughter Laila in 2012.
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Mariska Hargitay
Law & Order: SVU‘s Hargitay and her husband, Peter Hermann, welcomed daughter Amaya Josephine to their family in April 2011. “[Amaya’s] brother, August, is thrilled to have the sister he’s always wanted,” a rep for Hargitay told Us at the time. The couple adopted son Andrew later that same year.
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Sharon Stone
Basic Instinct‘s Stone is a single mom of three adopted boys, Roan, Laird, and Quinn. “There is no joy like the joy of being a mom,” Stone told Extra of the highs of motherhood.
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Rosario Dawson
“I remember I told my mom at 5 that when I got older I was gonna adopt and I was gonna adopt older,” the Guardians of the Galaxy star exclusively told Us in December 2018, four years after adopting her daughter, Lola.
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Brandi Redmond
The Bravo personality adopted son Bruin in December 2018. While the reality star planned to adopt baby No. 2 from the little one’s birth mom, the plan fell through in January 2020 following a pregnancy loss. She is also the mother of daughters Brooklyn and Brinkley.
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Sia
The Grammy nominee first announced her plans to adopt while watching HBO’s Fosters documentary in May 2019. “Hey Dasani from ‘FOSTER’ on HBO! I’d like to adopt you,” she tweeted at the time. “We’re just trying to find you and get my house check done etc. but I want you to know you will have a home with me. Dasani if you’re out there or your case worker is out there please email David@crushmusic.com so we can connect.”
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Kimora Lee Simmons
“I’m blessed and super fortunate to have a boy like him and it’s been a very painless sensation. He just dropped in like he was born there,” the fashion designer exclusively told Us in May 2020 of her son Gary’s “painless” adoption. “We’re a big group, a loud group. Everyone’s always screaming to me, ‘Mom, mom help me do this, do that’ all the time. ‘Mom, mom, mom.’ So he, in that sense, has blended right in.” Gary joined Simmons’ four other kids, Ming, Aoki, Kenzo and Wolfe.
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Charlize Theron
“That whole process was incredibly empowering for me as a woman,” the Oscar winner told Diane von Furstenberg in January 2020 of adopting her two children. “The fact that I got to choose when I wanted to be a mom. … There is a great power in choosing to be a mother and then doing it when your body, your mind and everything is celebrating all of that.”
