Angelina Jolie adopts Vietnamese boy

ANGELINA JOLIE yesterday adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy, the newest addition to the multicultural family she has formed with partner and fellow Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt. The Oscar-winning actress...

Published: Fri 16 Mar 2007, 11:15 AM

Last updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 12:28 AM

picked up the boy, named Pham Quang Sang, from a Ho Chi Minh City centre for orphaned and abandoned children in an emotional 30-minute morning visit, the facility's director Nguyen Van Trung said.

Jolie, 31, was travelling without Pitt, with whom she lives in New Orleans, but was joined by her five-year-old Cambodian-born adoptive son Maddox. "They tried to make friends with the Vietnamese boy, who cried when he saw them because for him, they are strangers," Trung said. "Jolie was very moved. Both of them tried to comfort the little boy."

Trung said Jolie planned to rename the boy Pax Thien, a combination of the Latin word for 'peace' and the Vietnamese word for 'heaven'.

The child is the fourth for Jolie. Aside from Maddox, she has a two-year-old daughter, Zahara, who was adopted from Ethiopia. Jolie and Pitt also have a biological daughter, Shiloh, born last May in Namibia.

It was the latest celebrity adoption of a child from the developing world after pop star Madonna and her director husband Guy Ritchie adopted a baby boy from a Malawi orphanage last October amid global controversy.

The adoption was officially confirmed at the Ho Chi Minh City justice department. "Justice department director Nguyen Duc Chinh, on behalf of the Ho Chi Minh City People's committee, read out and handed Jolie the official adoption paper, and she signed it," senior department official Tran Viet Thai said.

Jolie was expected to meet US consular officials so they could prepare an American passport for the boy, who was abandoned at the Tu Du Hospital in the city formerly called Saigon when he was one month old.

He now reportedly weighs 14.5 kilogrammes (39 pounds), is 93 centimetres (three feet) tall, likes noodles, yoghurt and football, and has recently learnt some basic English phrases and how to count to 10. When the boy cried, Jolie tried her hand at some Vietnamese, seeking to comfort him by repeating the phrase 'khong sao dau,' or 'no problem'.

Trung said the children and female staff at the centre 'said farewell to Jolie and the two boys' and gave the actress flowers, adding that the girls wore ao dai, traditional Vietnamese silken tunics. Jolie, one of the best known and highest paid actresses in Hollywood, filed the adoption papers in late January through an agency and adopted the boy as a sole parent because she is unmarried.

Jolie and Pitt, her co-star in the 2005 blockbuster 'Mr and Mrs Smith,' first met the boy during a Thanksgiving Day trip last November. The star couple were photographed riding a motorcycle through Vietnam's southern commercial hub, fuelling 'Brangelina' frenzy in the local media.

The A-list couple had been on a break from filming in India of 'A Mighty Heart,' a movie about the 2002 abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl by Islamic militants in Pakistan.

Jolie, who won an Oscar in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 'Girl, Interrupted', is a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency. She has visited scores of refugee camps in Africa, Asia and South America.