Angelina Jolie has made it a habit to adopt children from other parts of the world, and she has done it four times. She is currently considering adopting a fifth time with her partner, Brad Pitt. Her first step into this venture was to adopt a baby boy from Cambodia who she named Maddox. She became acquainted with Cambodia during the time that she was filming a movie there, “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” and when she went there for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The baby that Jolie would eventually take home with her was born on August 5, 2001. The baby, Rath Vibol, was given up to an orphanage in the Cambodian city of Battambang. Even though Jolie was married to actor, Billy Bob Thornton at the time, she adopted the child who became known as Maddox Chivan on her own; she was able to retain full custody of Maddox after her divorce from Thornton.
The next child in line for Angelina Jolie was a baby girl from Ethiopia. This baby was born on January 8, 2005, in Ethiopia and was adopted from an orphanage located in Addis Ababa. The baby has been given a name and had it changed three times in her short life with the first name being Yemsrach. Her name was changed to Tena Adam in her orphanage at Addis Ababa. When Jolie adopted her, the permanent name of this little girl became Zahara Marley.
This baby’s adoption was greeted with a few controversies. When Jolie first arrived in the United States with Zahara, the baby needed to be hospitalized to be treated for dehydration and malnutrition. Later in 2007, Zahara’s biological mother came back from the dead. It had been believed that Zahara’s mother was deceased, but she was in fact alive. Tabloids reported that the biological mother wanted to have her child returned to her, but the mother eventually confirmed that those reports were untrue; she was actually happy that Zahara had been chosen for adoption by someone like Angelina Jolie.
Vietnam became the next country of interest for adoption for Angelina Jolie. A baby boy born on November 29, 2003, had been abandoned at an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City. His given name at that time was Pham Quang Sang; after his adoption he became known as Pax, a name that Jolie’s mother suggested that she name him. Although she was in a seriously committed relationship with actor, Brad Pitt, at the time, they were not able to adopt Pax together; Vietnam does not approve adoptions for couples who are unmarried. This was rectified when they returned to the United States, and Pitt was able to adopt Pax in 2008.
In between these adoptions, Jolie has given birth to three other children. Shiloh was born in 2006, and twins, Knox and Vivienne, were born in 2008. The tally adds up to three adopted children and three biological children for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, but they are not finished. They are in the process of adopting their seventh child.
The plans to adopt a seventh child were announced in 2008, shortly after the twins were born. They were required to wait until any children they had were at least six months old before they could be considered as adoptive parents for any new children. The latest addition to the family is rumored to be a four-year-old, Haitian girl, named Leah. Like Jolie’s other adopted children, this particular girl has been residing in an orphanage in Haiti, because her parents were believed to have died in the highly destructive earthquake that Haiti experienced in 2010. The adoption is expected to be finalized at the end of this year.
