Madonna with new son DavidMadonna has denied reports from her son David’s biological father and uncle that they, and other members of his extended family, visited him while he was in the orphanage before she adopted him.

In an interview to be broadcast as part of BBC2’s Newsnight this evening, Madonna denied the reports and said that she offered David’s father, Yohane Banda, the option that she would support David financially while leaving him with Yohane in Malawi: “Yes, I offered that option to the father and he declined.”

“And I never met a granny and I was told… that from the day that he was left in the orphanage he was not visited by any extended family members and that’s really why I became interested in him.”

“If someone had said to me, ‘His dad comes every week or his granny visits on a regular basis and he’s well looked after,’ I would not even have given it another thought.”

“…According to the reverend who ran the orphanage that David came from, his father never visited him. His father lived 50 or 60km away, had no car, had no money and, as far as I was told, had remarried and moved on with his life.”

Meanwhile, Yohane has now claimed that David had already been selected for adoption before Madonna approached the orphanage: “There was an American woman living in the orphanage and she had been there for some time.”

“She wanted to adopt three children and one of them was Davie - I knew all about it. In the end, she chose another three children because she wanted her brother to adopt Davie.”

“Her brother’s name was also David and she sent him pictures of my son and said he was going to come and collect him. We were waiting for them both to come back to the village, but Madonna took him first.”

“If these Americans had adopted him, no one would have ever caused this fuss and I could be living my life as normal.”