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A transcription of the Oprah interview with Madonna has just been posted on Oprah.com. Click here to read it and see more photographs from the show to be aired today in the USA.

Here are some excerpts:

"I assure you it doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have, nothing goes fast in Africa," Madonna says. "There are no adoption laws in Malawi. And I was warned by my social worker that because there were no known laws in Malawi, they were more or less going to have to make them up as we went along. And she did say to me, ’Pick Ethiopia. Go to Kenya. Don’t go to Malawi because you’re just going to get a hard time.’"

"I’m financing a documentary about orphans in Malawi, so I was allowed to view footage and photographs of a lot of the children. An 8-year-old girl who is living with HIV was holding this child. I became transfixed by him. … But I didn’t yet know I was going to adopt him. I was just drawn to him."

"When I met him, he was extremely ill," Madonna says. "He had severe pneumonia, and he could hardly breathe. I was in a state of panic, because I didn’t want to leave him in the orphanage because I knew they didn’t have medication to take care of 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."

"They [Lola and Rocco] just embraced him, and that’s the amazing thing about children," she says. "They don’t ask questions. They’ve never once said, ’What is he doing here’, or mentioned the difference in his skin color, or questioned his presence in our life. That is an amazing lesson that children do teach us."

When Madonna first arrived in Malawi, she says she didn’t know anything about David’s parents. She was soon told that his mother had died of HIV and that his three siblings had also died of HIV. At the time, the Minister of Children and Mothers Welfare told Madonna that even though David’s biological father’s whereabouts were unknown, they would have to find him to give consent for the adoption.

"Here’s what I knew. David had been living in this orphanage since he was two weeks old," Madonna says. "He had survived malaria and tuberculosis, and no one from his extended family had visited him since the time he arrived. So from my perspective, there was no one looking after David’s welfare."

Once David’s father was located, he initially said he gave his son up for adoption always hoping that someone like Madonna would be able to give him a better life, and agreed to the adoption. Now, according to the press, David’s father is saying he did not fully understand what he was doing when he agreed to let Madonna adopt his son.

"I do not believe that is true. I sat in that room, I looked into that man’s eyes," Madonna says. "I believe that the press is manipulating this information out of him. I believe at this point in time, he’s been terrorized by the media. They have asked him things, repeatedly, and they have put words in his mouth. They have spun a story that is completely false."

With all the speculation, rumors and overall controversy surrounding Madonna’s adoption of David, how does Madonna feel about the media?

"I wouldn’t say I’m hurt by it, but I would say I’m disappointed," she says. "I understand that gossip and telling negative stories sells newspapers. But I think for me, 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. Anybody who had that idea would be discouraged from doing it. For me, that’s what disappoints me the most. 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.

"I beg all of those people to go to Africa and see what I saw and walk through those villages. … To see 8-year-olds in charge of households. To see mothers dying, with Kaposi sarcoma lesions all over their bodies. To see open sewages everywhere. To see what I saw. It is a state of emergency. As far as I’m concerned, the adoption laws have to be changed to suit that state of emergency. I think if everybody went there, they’d want to bring one of those children home with them and give them a better life."

i watched portions of it off and on here at work. she sounded great and explained the situation perfectly well.

I just watched it. And she yes, she explained everything very well. But, even at the end of the day, if her motives were nothing more than a publicity stunt (which I just don't belive) who cares? She's giving a baby a shot at a life. All the people making such a fuss about this really makes me ill. I'd like to see what all those assholes are doing about all those orphans. And like Madge said, the worst thing about all the negative media is that it's going to discourage others from adopting, and that is fucked up...end of rant...

TheResistor said:

The only thing that annoyed me was her in-and out fake accent.
She explained things fully, and I have no problem with the adoption, but I have one question....Oprah asked her if she got the adoption idea from talking with Angelina Jolie, and Madge said she never met Angelina. Then she turned right around and said that she and her husband had dinner with Brad and Angelina? Which one is it?

illimack said:

i heard it as they had dinner with Brad. Brad only.

madartista said:

Guy has done a movie with Brad, but that was before Bradgelina.

I just watched the interview and thought it was very good. Not only did it clarify the adoption situation but it shed light on some aspects of Malawi and Africa.

I don’t see this as a publicity stunt. Madonna is the last person that needs publicity at this time, especially this sort. I’m glad I didn’t get caught up in a lot of the media tales and waited to hear it from her. Ultimately, I hope the adoption works out for her and Guy.

In the end, I don’t think we’re judged because we didn’t help a certain person or nation or group of people. When it is pure and authentic, the intent to give love, assistance, or financial aid for a better life to those who have less than, is universal. There are no boundaries.

illimack said:

I picked up on that too.

Anyway, Madge looked great & she spoke well.

Scorpion said:

Yeah,the fake accent is a bit much I don't know why she does this

madartista said:

WHERE WHERE WHERE???

Dont tell me TV.....I am not in the US and Oprah's shows get here like 6 months later

I have not seen it yet

SoulAlive said:

In all sincerity, I don't think its a fake, intentional thing to put people on. It happens ALOT to Americans who expatriate to other countries, simply from being day in and day out of another culture where the rythym and speech patterns of how English is spoken are different. For example, me being a black woman, the easiest accent/dialect for me to retain in English is my southern black/ebonics thingy that I spoke in the home growing up with family. But as for my standardized American English accent, its VERY clipped at this point. Happens out of habit from having to enunciate to make yourself understood in English when you live in the EU. When I'm visit the US it takes me a solid week to get rid of my accent, and takes a lot of effort, because my brain, after all these years is used to and working with a completely different speech pattern when I speak English. I notice also with Madonna, when she does lapse into her American "dialect" of English, its a hardcore midwestern nasal whine (that's my 3rd dialect of English!)...I'm pretty sure this is because its reflective of the way she spoke growing up as a child in Michegan...she speaks in the same rythym of her father and stepmother then.

I don't think she's pulling anyone's leg. It's just a thing we go through from enunciating differently and repeatedly in our overseas homes, that's all.

Ottensen said:

maybe you're right.But I miss her "normal" way of speaking,before she left America and settled down in London.

there's already a lengthy thread on this...

http://www.prince.org/msg/8/206184