Adoption changes the entire trajectory of a child’s world.
In so many cases, they’re given a second chance with an adoptive family and a new life. In the best-case scenarios, the adoptions are seamless, and the end result is a happy, healthy, and well-adjusted human.
Related: Millie Bobby Brown Welcomes Second Child Via Adoption
As it turns out, far more celebrities were adopted as children than you ever realized!
Below, we’ll explore the life stories of some world-famous stars who were adopted as babies or very small children. Their lives turned entirely over — very often for the better — and then, as they got older, they found stardom.
What a rags-to-riches set of tales these have turned out to be!
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When Ray Liotta was just six months old, he was adopted by the couple that would go on to be there for the rest of his childhood. The only parents he ever knew became Alfred and Mary Liotta, and they raised him in a loving and supportive home. But as Ray got older, he became upset about being adopted. Not at his adoptive parents — but at his birth family. How could they give him up? What kind of a family would relinquish their children?
Those questions were natural, of course. And for years, Ray never had anything to do with his birth family out of fear, spite, and anger. But then, in his 40s, he finally met his biological mom. And as he did, he saw what her life was like and the turbulence she’d gone through to have Ray and then make the difficult decision to give him up for adoption.
Years later, Liotta spoke to People about his difficult adoption journey:
“At first, I didn’t understand how a parent could give up a child. So, I had that kind of energy of just being like, that’s just f**ked up. And then you realize, when I finally met my birth mom and my birth siblings … in my 40s, by then, I wasn’t as angry about it happening. I don’t know. It’s just another journey.”
Jamie Foxx was adopted — by his grandparents! His biological mom wasn’t able to care for him in the way a young baby needed, so his mother’s parents (who themselves had also adopted his mother) stepped up.
For years after, even as Jamie was treated very well by his grandparents-turned-parents, he struggled very much with the fact that his biological mom hadn’t been able to keep him around. That weighed on him long into adulthood, and well after he became a celebrity.
In fact, it still weighs on him to this day. He once told this to Oprah Winfrey during an interview:
“Although my parents weren’t around, my grandparents adopted me when I was 7 months old. I was never short on the love of a mother and father, though it came from an earlier generation of family. I don’t really even know what my biological father is like. I don’t know what his favorite food is. I don’t know his quirks. Same with my mother. But I know that the two people who raised me cared deeply for me.”
Even though she’s everyone’s favorite “guidette” on Jersey Shore, Snooki isn’t technically Italian-American!
The MTV reality queen, whose real name is Nicole Polizzi, was actually born in Chile. When she was just a few months old, an Italian-American couple came down to the city of Santiago to adopt a baby — and they were given the cutest, sweetest meatball! Ever since, the fan-favorite has truly blossomed in America. But she’s never looked back on what her life might have been like had she stayed in Chile.
Snooki once explained it like this in a YouTube video detailing her adoption story:
“I was adopted at 6 months from Santiago, Chile, and I was adopted by Helen and Andrew Polizzi. They flew all the way to Chile to come pick me up and they said right when they saw me they said I was like, ‘Mama, Dada.’ So it was meant to be, things just work out that way. It’s called fate. … I never really thought, ‘What’s my birth mother like? What’s my birth family like?’ Because I’m so content with my adoptive parents and my adopted life and family. But you know I thought about it once I started getting older, like, ‘What does my mom look like? What does my dad look like?’”
As with many of the celebs on this list, Steve Jobs was just a baby when he was adopted. His new parents Paul and Clara Jobs took the infant in, and showered him with love, affection, care, and a solid upbringing. Solid enough to develop one of the foremost tech companies in the history of the world years later as an adult!
Beyond that, the tech entrepreneur didn’t think much of his biological parents. In Walter Isaacson’s groundbreaking biography of the tech guru, Jobs is quoted as telling the author that his adoptive parents were the only parents he recognized, while his biological parents were a “sperm and egg bank… and nothing more.”
Later in life, Steve actually did meet his biological mom — and a biological sister who he’d obviously never grown up with. He didn’t come to have a significant relationship with them, though. And he had nearly no relationship at all with his biological father. In fact, they met just once (unknowingly!) at a restaurant — and it was only after their meeting that Steve finally learned who the man had been.
About that, Jobs said decades later:
“I shook his hand, and he shook mine and that’s all. I learned a little bit about him, and I didn’t like what I learned.”
Keegan-Michael Key was only a little boy when he was adopted by his parents Michael and Patricia. He was raised by them in a loving home, and became a well-adjusted adult. He also rocketed to fame later on, with Key & Peele still being one of the funniest shows ever produced. And then things came full circle as an adult, when he finally met his biological mother after so many years apart. But through it all, Key never stressed that much about being adopted. In fact, it was well-known from pretty much the very start.
Years later, in an interview looking back at his childhood, Key said:
“It was something my parents had always told me. I think they were trying to make me feel special. Like, ‘Hey, we picked you, and you’re special.’ Sometimes in the reinforcement of that, what happens is you’re just telling me I’m different. And there’s two ways to look at different. Different is either, ‘I’m different, and I’m special,’ or, ‘I’m different, and I’m worse than everybody else.’ So I do believe that’s where that comes from, that sense of wanting to please.”
Well said!
Glee alum Jenna Ushkowitz was born in South Korea, and when she was four months old, she was adopted by an American couple, Judi and Brad. They brought her to the US, where she flourished in life and her career. From the beginning, her adoptive parents were clear about where she came from and how she’d come to them. But they also called her “their little gift from God,” and made it clear that they had “unconditional love” for her.
For a long time, Jenna (pictured above in recent years, with her husband) never questioned it. She never wanted to seek out her birth parents, either. She has some questions about the circumstances under which she was born, but she felt so much love from her adoptive parents that she never felt the push to worry about it that much.
Years later, Jenna recalled it all in an Instagram post celebrating her family’s story:
“When I was 4 months old, I was adopted and brought to America and dropped off at JFK to my wonderful family in New York. I’m so grateful to my biological Mother for making what would seem to me to be an impossible choice and to my beautiful family who has given me more love and support than I could ever ask for. Today is my Plane Day or ‘gotcha day,’ the day I actually came to the US. I love you Mom, Dad and Gregg!”
So sweet!!
Country music superstar Faith Hill is actually adopted! When she was a baby, she was plucked by adoptive parents Ted and Edna Perry. Her adoption was never made a secret from her, but for a time, Faith was told incorrectly (and purposely) that she was put up for adoption after her biological mother had an affair with a married man. What actually happened was that her biological parents had her at a time when they weren’t able to care for her — so, they had to give her up for adoption.
Fortunately, it all worked out well for the singer… eventually. Years later, she told 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. The first time I met [my birth mother], I just stared at her. I’d never seen anyone that looked anything like me. It was the awe of seeing someone you came from. It fills something. … I know she must have had a lot of love for me to want to give me what she felt was a better chance.”
Kristin Chenoweth was put up for adoption just after her birth, and a couple named Jerry and Junie Chenoweth swooped right in to make her part of their family and raise her as one of their own. Through it all, the adoption was never a secret. When Kristin was old enough to know what was going on, her adoptive parents told her all about it. But they also told her they had chosen her to be with them — and they very much wanted her around. Awww!
Kristin said this to the Huffington Post as an adult when reflecting back on her story:
“It was never something that was hidden from me and it is not something I have ever been ashamed of. Not everyone can say that, but I count myself lucky to have a birth mother who loved me enough to know she wasn’t ready to be a mom. I’m lucky that I have wonderful parents who chose me. I often say adoption is a full-circle blessing and I truly believe it. Adopted children were not abandoned, we were chosen.”
That is SUCH a powerful and important sentiment!
[Image via Instagram/MEGA/FayesVision/WENN/Avalon/CNN/YouTube]