Madonna: Oh, do you know what I forgot to mention...?

Having failed to salvage the PR war by getting gently stroked in Oprah's studio, Madonna has now tried to make things better with a Newsnight interview. This time round, she seems to be trying to subtly shift the blame for it all going wrong to the orphanage, implying she was misinformed:

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."

Although how that squares with her telling Oprah she first saw him on a video (being held, you'll recall, by an eight year-old HIV+ girl) and felt a "connection", we're a little unsure.

"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."

And oddly, she now claims she offered to support David in his family:

Asked if it would have been an option to support him and leave him in Malawi, she replied: "Yes, I offered that option to the father and he declined."

Which is odd for two reasons - not only has Yohane never seemed to be aware of turning down this option, but you'd have thought that she might have mentioned that she floated this idea during the Oprah show, wouldn't you?

And even if it's true that Madonna was told of these ghost "new wives" and no vists, perhaps had she spent the time required by the Malawian law in the country, then she could have made certain. You can't help but feel, unwittingly, Madonna is admitting that she scooped up David in something of a rush before she had a chance to find out all the facts.

Which is, of course, exactly what she's being faulted for by the Malawian charities.

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