Split with Guy Ritchie almost ended Madonna’s mercy mission
MADONNA has revealed her divorce from film director Guy Ritchie almost cost her the chance to adopt her 11-year-old daughter Mercy James.
The mum-of-six launched her legal bid to give Mercy, from Malawi, a better life in 2008, after adopting son David from an orphange two years earlier.
But, when she went back to Africa to offer Mercy a home, a judge blocked her legal bid.
‘The judge informed me, as a divorced woman, I was not fit to raise children and that Mercy James was better off growing up in an orphanage,’ said Madge.
Mercy was suffering from malaria at the time, and the pop queen, 58, said she ‘promised’ the girl she ‘would grow up into strong and healthy adult’.
Refusing to give up, she appealed the judge’s ruling and was awarded custody of Mercy in 2009.
Speaking at the opening of a children’s hospital in the country named after her daughter, she recalled: ‘I fought for Mercy, and I won. It wasn’t easy.
‘And with the blood, sweat and tears of so many people here today, we fought for this hospital — and we won. So I’m here to say: never, ever give up on your dreams. Never stop fighting for what you believe in. Love conquers all.’
Author: Andrei Harmsworth
