In 2010, Sandra Bullock received a phone call that changed her life forever. “Your placement is here,” said the voice on the other end.
A few weeks later, she was on stage accepting her first Oscar for her role in The Blind Side, but her mind was elsewhere.
“All I wanted was to go home and feed Lou,” she said about her newborn son, whom she had been waiting for years to welcome into her life.
Hurricane Katrina and Adoption
In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, Sandra Bullock felt a strong urge to adopt a child from there.
“Katrina happened in New Orleans, and something told me, ‘My child is there.’ It was weird,” Bullock shared 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 of waiting,” the 59-year-old star of Speed told CBS News.
Meeting Little Lou
Sandra Bullock gushed about Louis Bardo Bullock, the three-month-old boy from New Orleans she secretly adopted in 2010. “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 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,” Bullock added.
Oscar Night
Weeks after Lou arrived, Bullock was on stage at the Kodiak Theatre, accepting her first Oscar. But all she could think about was her new son.
“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 into the dress. I was sewn into 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,” she said.
Becoming a Single Mother
Shortly after, Bullock’s marriage to reality star Jesse James ended, and she became a single mother to an infant.
“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,” Bullock explained.
Shifting Priorities
“No one understands the shift in priorities about having a child in your life…until you have a child in your life,” Bullock said. “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 his mom and said, “I’m going to have a baby soon.”
Though Bullock hadn’t planned on expanding her family, she listened to her son.
“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.”
Welcoming Laila
Laila, who was living in foster care in Louisiana, joined the family in 2015 when she was three.
Recalling Laila’s trauma from being in childcare, Bullock 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 remembered, adding that she always reassured Laila that she wasn’t “going anywhere.”
Her partner, Bryan Randall, who became a father figure to her children until his passing in 2023, had told her, “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.”
The Future
Lou, now 13, “is super sensitive…He’s wise and kind,” Bullock told People. “I saw that when they handed him to me. There was a spiritual bigness to him.”
Though fans might be disappointed, Bullock is scaling back her work schedule to focus on being a single mother again.
“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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