Pop star Madonna and her adopted son met with the young boy’s biological father in Malawi as the singer awaited a court decision on whether she could adopt a girl from the same country, her publicist said Tuesday.
Liz Rosenberg said in a statement that Madonna and her son David met Monday with David’s birth father, Yohanne Banda, for the first time since the young boy was adopted in 2006. “Madonna is committed to maintaining an ongoing relationship with David’s Malawian roots,” Rosenberg said. The publicist also confirmed, in the first public acknowledgment of what has been reported for weeks, that Madonna has filed an application “to adopt Mercy James, a 3-year-old girl Madonna met two years ago in an orphanage that she visited.” A spokeswoman for Malawi’s attorney general told CNN that the singer appeared Monday in court in that country, one of the poorest nations in the world, for a hearing on whether she would be allowed to adopt the girl.
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Madonna is to return to court Friday to hear the judge’s decision in the matter, spokeswoman Zione Ntaba said. The child’s family will have to give their permission for the adoption to proceed, according to Martin Geissler, a reporter for the ITN television network who is in Malawi. Madonna has been involved with Malawi for several years. She made a documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” which highlighted poverty, AIDS and other diseases devastating that country’s children. She also helps run a nonprofit, Raising Malawi, which implements initiatives to help the needy in the southeastern African nation.
