Angelina Jolie - Actress 'may battle heroin-addict mother for adopted son'
Monday Mar 26 05:00 - By ninemsn staff
Angelina Jolie is set for an ugly clash with the heroin-addicted mother of her newly adopted son Pax Thien, according to UK reports.
The News of the World claims a poor unmarried Vietnamese woman named Pham Thu Dung abandoned the boy two days after giving birth.
Dung, 29, didn't sign the adoption papers — providing her with an opportunity to request money from Jolie and her husband Brad Pitt, and even demand the return of her son.
Jolie picked up the three-year-old at a Ho Chi Minh city orphanage 10 days ago, naming him Pax Thien.
But the necessary paperwork required to make the adoption official was signed by Pax's grandparents, who now fear the drug-addled mother may contest the Hollywood stars for custody of her son.
"Our daughter is a heroin addict and she is a bag of trouble. Her life has been ruled by drugs since she was 16," said the child's 55-year-old grandfather Chien.
"She disappears for months on end. Then just when you think you will never see her again, she's back. But we only ever see her when she wants money.
The former oil tanker skipper said his daughter fell pregnant after an affair with a married man at the clothing factory where she worked.
Her son was seriously underweight when she gave birth to him on November 29, 2003. Doctors feared the baby would be born a heroin addict.
Two days later the mother reportedly snuck out of the hospital, leaving her son behind because she couldn't afford the $45 hospital bill — equivalent to a month's wages in Vietnam
Her family ended up copping the bill, and gave the boy to the city's Tam Binh orphanage a month later.
"We don't even know who the baby's father is, only that he's a married man. If she brought home an illegitimate son, I would have committed suicide. It would have destroyed the reputation of our family," said Chien.
"Our two youngest daughters still don't know that their sister has had a baby and that they are aunties."
Chien also revealed that Dung was actually at their house when officials arrived unexpectedly earlier this year to announce they had an American family looking to adopt the child.
"In January Dung was at our house when the deputy director of the orphanage where we had sent her baby paid a surprise visit to tell us a wealthy American wanted to adopt him."
"Although our daughter was in the room, she did not reveal that she was the boy's mother. Nor did we."
"She just sat in the corner, pretending to knit. She did not say a word and showed absolutely no emotion. She listened hard when the director told us her boy was going to have a good life, and that he was lucky he was going to live with this rich American woman.
"Then she disappeared. She was still hooked on drugs and we told her we had had enough. We have not seen her since that day.
"In February, we were asked to sign more papers agreeing to the adoption and stating that we did not know the whereabouts of our daughter, which we did.
"We did not know then that Angelina Jolie was the rich American who wanted to adopt our grandson."
The boy's aunt Trang, 33, told the tabloid that Dung still loves her child.
"My sister thinks about her baby a lot. She dotes on my younger daughter and both my girls call her Mother. If she could, she would try to get her son back."
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