NEW YORK —  Madonna says the news media fanned the controversy over her attempts to adopt a 13-month-old boy from the southeast African country of Malawi, and that the average person doesn't care about it.

"But when you throw in things like I'm a celebrity and I somehow got special treatment, or make the implication of kidnapping, it gets mixed into a stew, and it sells lots of papers,"the singer told Time magazine in an interview for editions on newsstands Monday.

"What they should care about is that there are over a million orphans in Malawi,"she said.

Madonna added that there was an element of nationalism and racism in the news media.

"There's a lot of Brits _ reporters on the street _ who've said'Why don't you adopt a kid from Britain?'Or'Why did you adopt a black child?'"Madonna said.

She said she has not worked harder for anything in her life than in trying to adopt the boy, David Banda. She and her husband, filmmaker Guy Ritchie, were granted an interim adoption order by Malawi's High Court last month.

The boy has joined her two children _ daughter Lourdes, 9, and son Rocco, 6 _ in England.

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