In 2010, Sandra Bullock received a life-changing phone call. “Your placement is here,” the voice on the other end declared.
A few weeks later, she found herself 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 of her newly adopted newborn, whom she had been waiting years to welcome into her life.
Years earlier, in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana, Bullock felt a calling that would later inspire her to adopt a child. “Katrina happened in New Orleans, and something told me, ‘My child is there.’ It was weird,” Bullock shared in an interview with Today’s Hoda Kotb.
In January 2010, Bullock received the call she had been eagerly anticipating for years. “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 revealed to CBS News.
The arrival of Louis Bardo Bullock, the three-month-old boy from New Orleans whom she secretly adopted, brought immense joy to Bullock. “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.”
Weeks after welcoming Lou, Bullock stood on stage at the Kodak Theatre, clutching her Oscar. But her heart was with her 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,” she shared.
Only days later, her marriage to Jesse James ended, leaving Bullock to navigate single motherhood. “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,” she reflected.
Becoming a mother shifted Bullock’s priorities. “No one understands the shift in priorities about having a child in your life … until you have a child in your life,” she remarked. “It naturally shifts…he showed up and now, Louis’ got the stage.”
Listening to her son, who predicted that he would soon have a sibling, Bullock adopted Laila in 2015. Despite Laila’s traumatic past in foster care, Bullock ensured her daughter felt loved and secure.
Now, as Lou and Laila thrive in her care, Bullock is scaling back her work commitments to focus on being a single mother once again. While fans may miss seeing her on screen, Bullock’s dedication to her children remains her top priority.
