Madonna took the offensive on the Oprah Winfrey Show this week in her first televised interview about her recent controversial adoption of 13 month old David Banda from the African village of Malawi.

Looking at times on the verge of tears and at others downright angry, an emotional Madonna eloquently defended her adoption of David Banda and expressed disappointment at the way the media has “manipulated” both the story and the boy’s father.

The singer who claims to have been unaware of the controversy until her home was besieged by reporters and photographers following the announcement of the adoption, said that her greatest concern was that this negative attention might dissuade others who were considering adopting desperately in need African orphans.

“They have spun a story that is completely false. I understand that gossip and telling negative stories sells newspapers. But I think, for me, I'm disappointed because it discourages other people from doing the same thing. I feel like the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa, period, not just Malawi, by turning it into such a negative thing.” Madonna said on the show.

At the top of interview, Madonna thanked Oprah Winfrey for having her on the show to clear up all the misinformation that she felt was circulating around about her and the latest addition to the family, and she used the platform that Oprah gave her quite effectively to address each of the rumors one by one. In fact, the normally chatty, Miss Winfrey took an unusual backseat to Madonna and let her do most of the talking.

On the subject of the Yohane Banda’s claim that he did not know that he was giving his son up forever, Madonna was fervently resolute.

“I sat in that room, he [Yohane Banda] looked into my eyes and he said to me that he was very grateful to me that I was going to give his son a life and that if he had kept his son with him in the village he would have buried him. I didn’t really feel like I needed any more confirmation that I was doing the right thing and that I had his blessing.”

Madonna went on to say in defense of her decision to adopt David, “Here's what I knew, David had been living in this orphanage since he was two weeks old. He had survived malaria and tuberculosis, and no one from his extended family had visited him since the time he arrived. So from my perspective, there was no one looking after David's welfare.”

The singer added that she believes that the elder Banda’s latest claims about his misunderstanding of the adoption procedure are the result of the man being “terrorized by the media”.

In addition to these claims, Madonna also refuted other stories surrounding David’s adoption including rumors that she had considered adopting an inner-city child from Los Angeles and that she had consulted with Brangelina about adopting an African orphan. With respect to the latter, the singer acknowledged that though her husband, director Guy Ritchie was friends with Brad Pitt and that they had all dined together, she had never in fact met Angelina Jolie.

Irrespective of the media circus surrounding him however, it appears that little David Banda Ritchie is getting on well with his new brother and sister, Lourdes and Rocco as evidenced by a brief slide show of pics shown on the Winfrey telecast. It also looks like for all the hoopla there is little chance that the adoption will be reversed according to Madonna’s comments earlier today, which means all the anti-Madonna human rights groups challenges are likely to be ‘Frozen’ in their tracks before long.

Until next time!