On Britney’s Lack of Underwear:

Letterman: “Now, I see these pictures on the Internet of some of your top stars of the day without their underpants.”

Madonna: “Oh God.”

Letterman: “You know what I’m talking about?”

Madonna: “I’ve been hearing these stories. It’s dreadful.”

Letterman: “It’s just remarkable.”

Madonna: “I love underpants.”

Letterman: “Yeah, who doesn’t?” “I remember one night right here a long, long time ago”

Madonna: “I brought you a pair of my underpants.”

Letterman: “ – you gave me a pair of underpants. And I still have them, yes I do.”

Madonna: “Maybe you could send them to Britney. Honestly, I live in England and so, I get – I’m pretty cut off from a lot of these stories. I only read stuff about, or hear stuff about the Royal Family. And so I’ve come to New York and the first thing I hear is about everyone not wearing their underpants. What’s going on? It’s freezing outside!”

Letterman: “Yeah, but it’s interesting.”

MADONNA TALKS ABOUT HER RECENT ADOPTION…AFTER THE JUMP!

Madonna on her recent adoption:

Letterman: “Here’s what I know: you go to Malawi, a country in Africa, in the Southeastern part of Africa.

Madonna: “Sub-Saharan Africa, yeah.”

Letterman: “Sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve never heard of Malawi.”

Madonna: “Mm-hmm, now you have.”

Letterman: “Seems, what I know about it now, about 12 million people.”

Madonna: “Yeah.”

Letterman: “And it’s a subsistent agricultural economy.”

Madonna: “Mm, it’s not doing so well.”

Letterman: “Right, subsistent. And you’re there and you’re able to adopt this, the pictures I’ve seen, beautiful baby boy named David. And I think, good for you, good for you. And then people start shooting their mouths off and people saying, ‘What’s the heck about this? And how did that happen?’ And ‘What is she doing?’”

Madonna: “’How dare she save a child’s life, the nerve of her.’”

Letterman: “Yeah, and it’s going on and on. Well, that’s it, and at the end of the day you think, she did. In fact, it’s not, it’s not – when you adopt, especially in these circumstances, I guess generally in an adoption, what you have done is you’ve actually save a life.”

Madonna: “Yeah.”

Letterman: “So all of these people who are raising a big stink should just shut up.”

Madonna: “Yes, they should.” 

Letterman: “Is it because you’re famous? Is that why? Are they envious?”

Madonna: “Well, I think other famous people have adopted children before and they’ve also adopted children from, you know, Sub-Saharan Africa, in fact. But honestly, I don’t, I don’t – the controversy took me by surprise. I wasn’t really sure what was the reason.”

Letterman: “Are there no laws in Malawi covering adoption?”

Madonna: “There are actually laws. There just have been so few adoptions. And the majority of adoptions have been from people who live in Malawi. So there was a Canadian couple that adopted a child from the same orphanage that I adopted from, and there was an, I think an English couple – no, a German couple, that adopted two children from an orphanage in Malawi. So, we were basically creating the laws as we went along and, in my opinion, yes, the laws are tough there and kind of just being formed, but I think the laws need to change.”

Letterman: “To be clarified, perhaps? Because they do seem confusing, what little of it I know. There seems to be some confusion.”

Madonna: “Well, there is confusion, but, as I said, Ethopia and Kenya are the only countries in Africa where they have established adoption laws, and when I did speak to my social worker and said I wanted to adopt a child from Malawi, she said, ‘Good luck. You’re going to be making it up as you go along.’ She didn’t say don’t do it, but she just said expect challenges, and boy, did we get them. But we did everything by the book and we went through the courts and, you know, everything was kosher in terms of legal, but it was – I think it brought a lot of attention to a country who’s just coming to terms with what they should do with the overwhelming number of orphans that are there. There’s over a million orphans in Malawi and in my opinion, the laws need to change because these children need to be rescued.”

Letterman: “Well, absolutely, I think so. And the circumstances here, the little boy’s mother had died.”

Madonna: “Yeah, Marita, she died.”

Letterman: “And the father said, ‘I can’t raise this child.’”

Madonna: “Yeah, well he had – three of their children died previous to David’s birth, and his mother died two weeks before – two weeks after he was born, and he couldn’t look after him so he brought him to an orphanage and – “

Letterman: “So, why are people criticizing this? This I don’t understand. I mean, honestly, if there had been laws broken, you would have been arrested and be in prison now for kidnapping, and that – “

Madonna: “Well, I wouldn’t have been able to take a child out of the country.”

Letterman: “Exactly, that’s right.”

Madonna: “So, what was the question?”

Letterman: “I don’t know. I just, I just – “

Madonna: “It’s all so silly.”

Letterman: “I found it a little upsetting that there was such a tumult and furor over this when in fact the net result was here we have a human being that now has a life.”

Madonna: “Saving a life, yeah.”

Letterman: “So why do people get their nose out of joint for that?”

Madonna: “I don’t know. I think they’re bored. I think they need to go out and save some lives themselves.” (audience applauds)

Letterman: “Anyway, how is David?”

Madonna: “He’s a champion tantrum thrower, yes.”

Letterman: “How old is he now?”

Madonna: “He’s 15 months old. By the way, do you like his name?”

Letterman: “Yes, it’s a lovely name.

Madonna: “It’s a very good name, right? ‘King David,’ we call him.”

Letterman: “Yeah, it’s interesting, when they’re that age or any age, they really can’t do anything for themselves. They can’t dress themselves, they can’t feed themselves, they can’t go anywhere by themselves, but yet they’re running the entire show.”

Madonna: “It’s true.”

Letterman: It’s amazing.”

Madonna: “It’s all wrong. And then they grow up and the opposite happens.”

Letterman: “That’s right. Yeah, and the police are at the house every night. I’m looking forward to that.”

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 9:57 am and is filed under Madonna. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.