On Oct. 12, Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie were granted temporary custody of a 13-month-old Malawian orphan named David Banda. This sparked a storm of accusations, ranging from the criminal (that Madonna used her fame to bypass adoption procedures) to the scathing (that Madonna is a dilettante, treating an African child as this season's must-have accessory). The legal issue has been laid to rest--no laws were violated--but Madonna still had plenty to get off her chest in a rare print interview with TIME'S Josh Tyrangiel.
Why do you think people are so upset that you adopted a Malawian child?
People or the media? Because I don't think people really give a s___. But when you throw in things like I'm a celebrity and I somehow got special treatment, or make the implication of kidnapping, it gets mixed into a stew, and it sells lots of papers. What they should care about is that there are over a million orphans in Malawi. I think there's a certain amount of nationalism and racism thrown in there. There's a lot of Brits--reporters on the street--who've said, "Why don't you adopt a kid from Britain?" Or "Why did you adopt a black child?" So a lot of hang-ups and "isms" are mixed into this too.
One of the "isms" that you're accused of is dilettantism. There's a perception that you're bandwagon jumping and bringing a child into it too.
I don't care. Which is better? That I found out about an issue and instantly wanted to take action, or that it took me years to get my s___ together? Look, I could have joined the U.N. and become an ambassador and visited various countries and just kind of showed up and smiled and looked concerned. But that's not getting to the root of the problem--and by the way, neither is building orphan-care centers and giving people food and medicine. [Editor's note: As reported earlier in TIME, Madonna's foundation is raising about $1.5 million to create a center for some of Malawi's AIDS orphans as well as financing a documentary on Malawian children.] But it's a start. And whether I have earned the right to do it, or the respect of people who think I may not have the right to do it, is completely and utterly irrelevant.
You met Mr. Banda once, in a courtroom. What did you say to him?
Obviously when you're sitting across from the father, it's really heart wrenching. I said, "I feel for you, and I want what's best for David. So if you want him, I don't want to take your son from you. I just want to save his life. I can't live in Malawi. I can't move my family here. But there's another option. I can just give you money, and you can raise him." And he said no. But he still had a very hangdog expression. Look, his wife dies, his three other children die, the guy's been grieving and been through hell. He gives his last son to an orphanage at the age of 2 weeks ... to a certain extent he was ready to move on with his life. Then suddenly I show up, and someone from the village says, "Hey, this white woman"--he didn't know who I was--"wants to adopt your child!" And once the press got involved, everyone said, "Oh, God, now we better cross our t's and dot our i's to make sure we actually aren't jumping queues."