Top 10 Celebrities Who Were Adopted

The big celebrity news this week was that Sandra Bullock adopted a beautiful baby boy from New Orleans. Other celebrities have also taken measures to give homes to children without parents – Angelina Jolie definitely comes to mind but Rosie O’Donnell, Sharon Stone, Babe Ruth, Nicole Kidman, and a number of other famous figures are also adoptive parents. Some of your favorite celebrities themselves are adopted. In no particular order, here are ten awesome celebrities who were adopted as children:

1. Steve Jobs

Jobs is living proof that having a rough start to life doesn’t mean that you can’t be someone. The Apple co-founder was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, who also adopted his sister, Patty. Eventually, his biological parents, Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali, got married and had another child, so Jobs has a biological sister as well.

2. Dean Cain

Best known for his role as superman in the ’90s, Cain’s mother, Sharon Thomas, and father, Roger Tanaka, were divorced before he was even born. When his mother remarried Christopher Cain, the director decided to adopted her two sons, Dean and Roger.

3. John Lennon

This Beatles star had a very troubled childhood. He was born to Julia and Alfred Lennon, and there was a bit of a custody battle between them until he was about five. Ultimately, he was raised by his mother’s sister, Mary Smith, who once said, “I knew the moment I saw John in that hospital that I was the one to be his mother, not Julia. Does that sound awful? It isn’t, really, because Julia accepted it as something perfectly natural. She used to say, ‘You’re his real mother. All I did was give birth.’”

4. Ice-T

Ice-T, otherwise known as Tracy Marrow, was born to Solomon and Alice Marrow in New Jersey, but both of his parents died when he was a child. He was adopted by his aunt in California in third grade.

5. Daunte Culpepper

This famous football player was born to a mother in prison and was adopted by Emma Culpepper, who ultimately raised an astounding 15 children.

6. Sarah McLachlan

McLachlan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and was adopted to Jack and Dorice McLachlan, an American couple living in Canada at the time. The McLachlans have other adopted children as well.

7. Marilyn Monroe

Actually, Monroe was never officially adopted. This buxom beauty was born Norma Jeane Baker to Gladys Baker, who was mentally unstable, and she lived with foster parents foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender until she was seven. Her mother took her back, but had a mental breakdown after just a few months. She spent the rest of her childhood living with friends of her mother, with aunts, at orphanages, and in foster homes. Several people tried to adopt her, but her mother was reluctant to give up her rights. At points, she lived back with her mother and an abusive step-father, and eventually married a boyfriend at age 16 to avoid going back into the system, since her mother wouldn’t allow an adoption.

8. Bill Clinton

Clinton was raised by his grandparents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, since his mother had dreams of going to college and his father died in an automobile accident before he was born. When he was four or five, his mother came back from nursing school and married Roger Clinton, who raised Bill as his own and officially adopted him as a teen.

9. Faith Hill

Hill was born Audrey Faith Perry in Mississippi, and was adopted as an infant to a couple in a nearby town. She was raised with two brothers who were biological children for her parents. In the early ’90s, she tracked down her biological mother and the two remained in contact until her mother’s death.

10. Tim McGraw

Although fewer people know his wife Faith Hill is adopted, McGraw’s parental issues are pretty well known. He grew up believing that adoptive father was Horace Smith, but in reality, his mother was pregnant by sports start Tug McGraw. Tug denied Tim as his son for several years before finally confirming paternity when he was 18.

Img credits: Matthew Yohe, Sgt. Juan Vara, Roy Kerwood, David Shankbone, Muchness, Terence Gui, Wikicommons, Bob McNeely, Airman 1st Class Jason Neal, Budd Butcher