In 2010, Sandra Bullock received a life-changing phone call. “Your placement is here,” the voice on the other end informed her.
A few weeks later, she found herself on stage, accepting her first Oscar for her role in The Blind Side. Despite the prestigious moment, her mind was elsewhere. “All I wanted to do was go home and feed Lou,” she confessed, referring to her newborn, whom she had eagerly awaited for years.
Read on to discover more about this remarkable actress and what inspired her to adopt two children!
In 2005, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Sandra Bullock felt a strong intuition that led her to consider adoption.
“Katrina happened in New Orleans, and something told me, ‘My child is there.’ It was uncanny,” Bullock revealed in an interview with Hoda Kotb on Today.
Years later, in January 2010, Bullock received the long-awaited call.
“He was unexpected, he was not planned. I got a call one day, ‘Your placement is here,’ and that’s after years after having filed it, years,” the 59-year-old star of Speed tells CBS News.
Gushing over Louis Bardo Bullock, the three-month-old boy from New Orleans she secretly adopted in 2010, Bullock said, “I looked at him like, ‘Oh, there you are.’ It was like he had always been there,” she recalled. “He fit in the crook of my arm. He looked me in the eyes. He was wise. My child was wise.”
The Miss Congeniality star reflects, “The beautiful thing that I was constantly told was, ‘The perfect child will find you. You will find your child.’ But you don’t believe that when it’s not happening. When you’re going, ‘Where is my family?’ When it does happen, you know exactly what they’re talking about.”
Weeks after Lou arrived, Bullock found herself on stage at the Kodiak Theatre, accepting her first Oscar for her leading role in the film, The Blind Side.
But Lou occupied her thoughts, and she yearned to be at home with him.
“All I kept thinking about was, ‘He’s at home.’ Like, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I was there, I just wanted to go home. And then I was sewn in the dress. I was sewn in the dress, and I had to get myself out of the dress, but all I wanted to do was just go home and feed Lou.”
Only days later, her marriage to reality star Jesse James collapsed, and Bullock found herself a single mother to an infant.
Bullock reflected, “I mean, so much had happened. How do you process grief and not hurt your child in the process? It’s a newborn, they take on everything that you’re feeling. So, my obligation was to [Lou] and not tainting the first year of his life with my grief.”
“Louis got the stage,” Bullock continued. “No one understands the shift in priorities about having a child in your life … until you have a child in your life. It naturally shifts… he showed up and now, Louis got the stage.”
Growing up in a healthy, happy environment, little Lou one day looked up at mom and predicted, “I’m going to have a baby soon.”
Though Bullock admits she wasn’t planning on expanding her family, she listened to her son, who planted the seed.
“I realized at that time, maybe he knew something. And when I think about it, it would have been around the time that Laila was born,” Bullock said. “It’s Louis’ way. Louis has a very strong way. He’s a fine leader, and he led me to Lai.”
Laila, who was living in foster care in Louisiana, is her daughter who joined the family in 2015 when she was three.
Recalling Laila’s trauma from being in childcare, the Ocean’s 8 star said, “She’d be in the closet with all her clothes on, she’d be on a bookshelf, she’d be hiding, she’d always be ready to leave,” the actress recalled of her daughter, adding that she always made sure Laila knew that she wasn’t “going anywhere.”
She then shared a conversation she had about Laila with Bryan Randall, the father figure to her children, and her partner from 2015 until ALS claimed his life in 2023. She said, “My partner said to me, ‘When she’s been with us longer than she hasn’t been, I have a feeling we’re going to see a change.’”
He was right. Recently, Bullock described Laila as “unafraid.”
“She’s a fighter, and that’s the reason she’s here today. She fought to keep her spirit intact. Oh my God, what she is going to accomplish. She’s going to bring some real change.”
Lou, now 13, “is super sensitive…He’s wise and kind,” the Bird Box star tells People. “I saw that when they handed him to me. There was a spiritual bigness to him.”
Though fans will be disappointed, the versatile actor is scaling back her work schedule to again be a single mother.
Bullock’s most recent appearances were in 2022’s The Lost City with Channing Tatum and Bullet Train with Brad Pitt.
“I can be creative, I can be part of a community, but right now, work in front of the camera needs to take a pause,” she said.
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