From Katherine Heigl to Sheryl Crow, the Hollywood elite seem
determined to give a loving family to orphaned children both stateside
and abroad. But there are also celebrities on the other side of the
coin, who have actually been adopted themselves-either by non-relatives
or by other family members. Read on to discover 15 well-known faces with
surprising birth histories.
1. Steve Jobs
The Apple cofounder was born in San Francisco in 1955 to Joanne Simpson
and Abdulfattah John Jandali, an unwed couple who put Jobs up for
adoption as an infant. He was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a
machinist and accountant respectively, and grew up in Los Altos,
California. As an adult, Jobs tracked his family history, discovering
that his parents later wed and had a daughter, Mona Simpson, who Jobs
later had a "close relationship" with, according to The Apple Museum.
2. Deborah Harry
This '80s punk diva and lead singer of the band Blondie was born in
1945 in Miami, but was adopted at 3 months old by Richard and Catherine
Harry, gift shop owners in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She has stayed
relatively mum on her family history, but has said that she was
originally named Angela Trimble and that she has never met her birth
parents. She was also quoted in 2003 in the German newspaper Die Zeit:
"For a long time I thought I was Marilyn Monroe's daughter. My parents
had adopted me, I knew that. …In my imagination I built a relationship
to her, made her my unknown, biological mother."
3. Ray Liotta
Born in Newark, New Jersey, the edgy 59-year-old actor was adopted at 6
months old by Alfred and Mary Liotta and raised in New Jersey along
with a younger adopted sister. After becoming a parent himself, he
decided to hire a private detective to track down his birth mother. The
two met and he learned he has four half-sisters, a half-brother and a
full sister. "When I finally found out in my 40s, you realize that the
best thing in the world was that I was adopted, only based on that my
birth mother had circumstances that didn't warrant her to keep a kid,"
he said in a 2009 PBS interview with Tavis Smiley.
4. Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. was the eldest of eight children born to George
Herman, a Baltimore bartender, and his wife, Kate. By the age of 7, he
was an energetic troublemaker, and his parents decided he needed a
stricter home environment. They placed him at St. Mary's Industrial
School for Boys, a combination reform school and orphanage run by
Catholic monks, who were given custody of Ruth. One particular monk,
Brother Mathias, became a father figure for Ruth, and encouraged him in
baseball. At 18, he was spotted by Jack Dunn, a scout and owner of the
Baltimore Orioles, who later became Ruth's legal guardian so the
underage baseball player could legitimately join the team.
5. Frances McDormand
The award-winning actress was born in Chicago in 1957 and was the
youngest of four children adopted by Canadian parents Vernon McDormand, a
Disciples of Christ minister, and Noreen, a retired registered nurse
and receptionist. Her father's work led the McDormand family to move
frequently around the U.S. during Frances' early years, but they finally
settled in a suburb of Pittsburgh. In 1994, McDormand and her husband,
film director Joel Coen, adopted a son, Pedro, who was born in Paraguay.
6. Nelson Mandela
The anti-Apartheid leader was born into the Thembu sub-tribe nobility
of the Xhosa people in Mvezo, South Africa. Though he was initially
raised by his parents, his father died when he was 9 years old and he
was taken to the larger village of Mqhekezweni, the Thembu provincial
capital, where he was informally adopted by the Thembu chief Jongintaba.
His father had been instrumental in the rise of Jongintaba within the
tribe, and Mandela's adoption was in acknowledgement of that debt.
7. Marilyn Monroe
The iconic actress was born Norma Jean Mortenson to an unmarried
Hollywood film-editing assistant named Gladys Baker, who later baptized
Marilyn with her own last name. Baker was psychologically unstable and
committed to an institution early in Monroe's life. With her mother
institutionalized, Monroe bounced around at least nine
foster homes until she was 11, when she went to live with Grace McKee Goddard, a family friend.
8. John Lennon
John Lennon's parents, Julia Stanley and Alfred Lennon, separated when
he was 3 years old. Soon after, his seaman father virtually disappeared,
and by the time John was 5, his mother begrudgingly allowed him to be
raised by his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. She had frequent interactions
with Lennon, but never raised him full-time for a host of speculated
reasons, including family pressure that she was unfit because of her
lifestyle.
9. Faith Hill
Audrey Faith Perry was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1967. She was
adopted at one week old by Edna Perry, a bank teller, and Ted, a factory
worker, who already had two biological sons. Raised in Star,
Mississippi, she met her birth mother in 1993, discovering that her
parents had been unwed when she was given up for adoption, but later
married and had a son. Hill commented on her three-year search for her
birth mother in a 2004 interview with Good Housekeeping: "I was adopted
into this incredible home, a loving, positive environment, yet I had
this yearning, this kind of darkness that was also inside me."
10. Jamie Foxx
Actor and musician Jamie Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop in Terrell,
Texas. When Foxx was 7 months old, his mother, Louise, divorced from his
father, and his grandparents, Mark and Esther Talley, adopted him. His
grandmother had a significant influence on his life, encouraging Foxx in
his music, studies and sports. As an adult, Foxx has been an
advocate for adoption, talking and appearing in shows about the subject.
11. Dave Thomas
The Wendy's fast-food chain founder was born in 1932 in Atlantic City,
New Jersey. He was adopted by Rex and Auleva Thomas at 6 weeks old.
Thomas's adoptive mother died when he was only 5 years old, and as a
result, he spent much of his childhood moving from state to state with
his father. During those years, he enjoyed his summers in Michigan with
his adoptive grandmother, Minnie Sinclair, whom he credits on the
Wendy's website as one of the major stabilizing forces in his life.
12. Liz Phair
The '90s alt-rocker was born in 1967 in New Haven, Connecticut, but
raised in the Chicago suburbs with her older brother Philip (who was
also adopted) by John Phair, MD, an infectious disease specialist and
HIV/AIDS researcher, and his wife Nancy. Phair has been quoted as saying
that she had a happy childhood and always knew she was adopted. But in a
2006 interview with Women's Health, she surprisingly voiced some
criticism of adoption, saying: "I don't think you can be adopted without
being a little bit screwed up."
13. Jesse Jackson
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson was born in 1941 in Greenville, South
Carolina, the child of 16-year-old Helen Burns and her neighbor, boxing
champion Noah Robinson, Sr. Robinson was already married, but Burns
kept Jesse, and a year later married Charles Jackson, who adopted the
boy as his own. It was not until Jesse was 7 years old that he learned
about his birth father's identity. In a 1997 interview with The New York
Times, Jackson rebutted comments that he resented his childhood,
saying, "People say I had a father deficit when in truth I had a father
surplus."
14. Sarah McLachlan
Born in 1968, Sarah Ann McLachlan was adopted in Nova Scotia, Canada,
by Jack and Dorice McLachlan, who also had two adopted sons, Ian and
Stewart. McLachlan found out she was adopted at 9 years old; in an
interview with American Baby, she said: "Even then it wasn't a big deal.
…Perhaps I was too young to understand it really, but it just never was
a big issue to me." Later in life, she met her biological mother, who
had been a 19-year-old artist when she became pregnant.
15. Scott Hamilton
The 1984 Olympic Gold Medal champion in men's figure skating was
adopted when he was 6 weeks old by Dorothy and Ernest Hamilton of
Bowling Green, Ohio. His adoptive father was a professor of biology at
Bowling Green State University and his mother was a grade school teacher
who later became an associate professor at Bowling Green. He has an
older sister, Susan, the Hamilton's firstborn biological child, as well
as a younger brother, who is also adopted.
VP
The Vice-Principal of a government school, 57-year-old Taiwo Ajayi, has been
caught defiling a 12-year-old student of the school. He was caught by one of
the staff in the school, Mr Victor Babayemi. He reported the matter after
suspecting the movement of the young girl inside the vice principal’s office.
“The witness became apprehensive when the student, after spending a
considerable time in the VP’s office, did not come out. The witness went near
the door and discovered it was bolted from behind, she knocked and the
movements, sounds and subsequent demeanor of both the suspect and the victim
gave them away.” According to a police statement in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, Mr.
Ajayi was said to have allegedly committed the offence inside his office at
Saint Mary’s Girls Grammar School, Ikole Ekiti. The state police image maker
said investigation revealed that the randy vice-principal had a similar case in
the past which was not reported and added that the young girl also admitted that
the man had carnal knowledge of her on the table inside his office. “The report
of a medical examination confirmed that the young girls’s hymen is not intact,”
the staff who caught them in the act said. “With the evidence against him, he
will soon be arraigned in court for defilement,” according to the police but Mr
Ajayi is however denying the allegation. He said “I didn’t do anything o!”
After we published photos of Nollywood actors, Muna
Obiekwe and Biola Ige in a raunchy act few weeks back, the clips went viral
online. Muna claimed he can’t remember doing anything of such with her but
pictures don’t lie. Biola herself later came out to say that it was a movie and
that people should not judge her by what they see in the photos but wait until
the movie is out and they have watched it. The issue is: Why did Muna lie? Who
leaked the pix? Did someone asked for séx to cover this photo? 
I’ve
gathered a lot from credible sources in the movie industry concerning this
photo and it’s not good at all in any guise. The pix was from a video camera,
not a photo camera. That means there was not suppose to be a pix of the scene
until it is edited but somebody got this from the video file all in a bid to
achieve a rough agenda. I hope you know what I mean by “rough”. Well, if you
don’t, you are on your own. I can’t say much. For now, there is a lot of blame
games and all that going on but all fingers are pointing in two directions…
