Madonna tells Oprah her side

Madonna portrayed herself as a heroine Tuesday -- and Oprah Winfrey's audience believed her. Trying to defuse controversy surrounding her adoption of a 13-month-old African boy, Madonna spoke with Winfrey via satellite from London. The interview was taped at Winfrey's studio in Chicago and will air on "Oprah" this morning at 9 on WLS-Channel 7.

"She seemed very sincere," said Jessica Busch, 25, of Wrigleyville. "You could tell that she genuinely loves this little boy." Madonna, 48, caused a furor last month when she and her husband, British film director Guy Ritchie, adopted the boy, David Banda.

Critics charged she and Ritchie rushed the adoption and skirted the law. The boy's father, Yohane Banda, then said he never intended to give his son up permanently. Time.

com reported Tuesday afternoon the father will not contest the adoption.

Madonna told Oprah her version Tuesday, saying the father questioned the adoption only after being hounded by the media. Earlier, he had looked Madonna in the eye and thanked her for "giving him a better life," Sharon Lynch of Hoffman Estates quoted Madonna as saying.

"She's been trying to do the right thing," said Lynch, who described the "Oprah" audience as "very supportive." Madonna told Winfrey that reports she got adoption advice from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were false. She also said David has pneumonia, contracted in Malawi, but is getting better.

She plans to take David back to his home country of Malawi once or twice a year. The singer depicted the father, Yohane Banda, as uninvolved in the boy's life, saying David had been in an orphanage since he was 2 weeks old, audience members said. When he contracted malaria, tubercuosis and pneumonia, the father did not visit him, Madonna said.

The boy's mother and three siblings died of AIDS.

Though Madonna came across as sincere, some audience members wondered what had happened to the Detroit native's inflections.

"The most interesting thing was that she's developed a British accent. I'm going, 'Where did that come from?' " Lynch said.

"In watching her, I thought that she was very sincere, and now I'm sympathetic to her." -- Deb Hall-Reppen, Geneva "She really seemed emotional about the whole thing. And the consensus of the audience seemed to be that the father of the child, like, the reporters got to him.

" -- Sue Waldman, Chicago "The media has gotten to the father, and they have stressed him out to the point that this is now part of the controversy." -- Robin Ayoob, Philadelphia "She's trying to do a good thing. What she's afraid of is that now people are going to be afraid to adopt children from this area.