How Did Sandra Pull It Off?*

Talk about being blindsided. Today, every celebrity probably is thinking the same thing: If Sandra Bullock can do it, why can't I?
Not just adopt a baby — movie stars have been doing that for decades (e.g. Joan Crawford). Not just adopting an African-American baby — celebrities have adopted babies of different races before, too (e.g. Angelina Jolie). It was even the plot of Bullock's latest movie, The Blind Side.

No, what Bullock did, as People magazine revealed Wednesday, was pull off one of the most amazing coups in the history of celebrity media: She adopted a baby from New Orleans and took him home in secret in January, despite being in the white-hot spotlight for her hit movie, winning a best-actress Academy Award and suffering through a failing marriage.

Somehow, as reporters gawked at Bullock, 45, and cheating husband Jesse James outside their home in Los Angeles and her other home in Austin, they failed to notice the baby carriage slipping in by the back door?

"I wish I knew how she did it, and then maybe I'd learn for the next time!" half-jokes Brandy Navarre, vice president of the paparazzi agency X17. "It's a mystery to us how she was able to avoid us and the rest of the media."

Says Linda Bell Blue, executive producer of Entertainment Tonightand The Insider."We got blindsided, didn't we?"

"What's interesting is that she was dropping hints along the way — in her Oscar speech she wanted to thank 'all the moms who take care of babies and children no matter where they come from,' " Bell Blue says. Also, she says, by allowing pictures of the baby in People, Bullock has reduced the price tag and competition for photos of him.(People does pay for photos. However, the magazine does not discuss the specifics of any deal.)

"It's a remarkable, impressive head fake," says longtime Hollywood PR consultant Michael Levine. "I'm astounded because celebs have zero privacy in the modern world. I don't know how she did it, but I tip my hat to her."

Even Bullock was stunned. "I don't know how we got away with it," she told People, which reported that Bullock told only a few friends and relatives and employed CIA tactics such as "decoys and dark cars." After a four-year adoption process, she and soon-to-be-ex-husband James brought the infant boy home to Los Angeles in January and named him Louis (for Louis Armstrong), and even held a bris (Jewish circumcision ceremony) but kept it under wraps until after the Oscars in early March.

"We didn't want Louis pulled into the awards season energy," she told People. "I wanted him all to myself."

Just like 'Blind Side' character

She didn't want to take away from the Oscar, speculates Bonnie Eaker Weil, a New York family therapist and author of Make Up, Don't Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples. "She wanted to bask in the wonderful emotions of achieving in her career, and then go to motherhood."

Remarkably, even her young stepchildren knew to keep quiet, says J.D. Heyman, an executive editor at People. "She did it with a lot of support from a very close circle of people that she trusted. They kept the secret, and that includes her stepchildren, even the littlest one."

Weil says it's significant that Bullock has ended up imitating the woman she plays in The Blind Side, Leigh Anne Tuohy, by adopting an African-American child from a presumably disadvantaged background. It's "absolutely" a case of transference, says Weil. Tuohy touched Bullock's heart "literally. She didn't just play the part; she did it in real life."

But she never said so in countless appearances during awards season. Bullock wouldn't let anyone come to the house for fittings for her dresses. She told People that her makeup artist couldn't understand why she was always so tired she needed "copious amounts of concealer" to cover up.

Throughout awards season, Bullock looked rested and glowing. In interviews, she never let on about the baby at home, even after a little lime-green baby sock popped out of her bag on the red carpet; people would pick it up and hand it back to her without even asking why she had a baby sock in her handbag, she said in People.

Then she won the Oscar, and days after, the details of James' dalliances with a stripper spilled out. Bullock left L.A. with Louis, now 3½ months, and disappeared from view.

"All I remember thinking is I need to get Louis out of here before the vultures descend," she said.

Even now, there are still a few things Bullock has held back, like the circumstances of the baby's birth and the adoption. She did tell People she is "adopting as a single parent." TMZ reported Wednesday that Bullock filed for divorce in Austin last week, but the public document didn't surface until Wednesday because Bullock filed using her initials, backward. (Bullock's publicist Cheryl Maisel did not respond Wednesday to questions about the divorce filing and adoption.)

James issued a statement to People saying that losing his marriage and losing the baby has left a "huge hole in my heart." He also suggested the marriage and joint adoption might still be saved: "I believe that the steps I have taken in the last 30 days (in rehab for addictions) are the foundation for making this happen."

In Austin, the local newspaper had no clue about the divorce or the adoption; Bullock lives and owns businesses there but rarely talks to the media, says Michael Barnes, social columnist for The Austin American-Statesman's entertainment website, Austin360.com.

"She comes to Austin to chill ... she stays out of the spotlight," Barnes says. "We are working the story, but there's not a lot of fresh facts to report, other than the media craziness."

In Hollywood and its outposts, people were both incredulous and admiring of Bullock's savvy.

"It was a great call on her part — it changed the dialogue from the divorce to the new kid," says Howard Bragman, a Los Angeles celebrity publicist and author of Where's My Fifteen Minutes? Get Your Company, Your Cause, or Yourself the Recognition You Deserve. "It was played perfectly. She's a classy lady. ... The paparazzi respect her. She's got class and everyone knows it."

People wanted to 'protect her'

In fact, maybe Bullock succeeded because she is so well-liked, by the public and the entertainment media. At Walton's Fancy and Staple, Bullock's deli, bakery and café in Austin, Amanda Seiler of Houston and Sue Allen of Saratoga, N.Y., say they came in to the café for dessert Wednesday as a sign of support for Bullock. Seiler suggested the actress was able to keep the baby a secret for so long because "she is such a good person."

"People were not going to be selling her out," Seiler says. "She is lovable and kind and approachable and relatable. I think people truly, truly like her and protect her."

It's also a sign of how smart a businesswoman she is, Bragman says. "She's smart in business and smart in handling her public life," he says. "A lot of that is intuition and knowing how to play that."

But maybe any celeb could have done what Bullock did, Navarre says. "Not to give our secrets away, but if you want to hide, it's not that difficult," she says. "What's difficult is to avoid tipping off people that celebrities come into contact with on a daily basis ... everyone from the private jet company, the booker, the stewardess, the pilot, someone in the adoption agency."

And yet no one blabbed. "It seems like she has very loyal employees and friends and family and people around her," Navarre says.

"That's amazing, especially in this world, where every orderly or valet will sell their mother for the price of dinner," Bragman adds. "It really speaks to the kind of person she is and the kind of people she surrounds herself with."

In the end, the story of the Bullock baby may contribute to a rethinking about how celebrities can be smart about managing their PR image and still achieve some level of privacy, says Eric Dezenhall, a Washington crisis-management consultant. More and more celebrities, he says, are discovering that exposure leads to more exposure, not respect for privacy.

"While secrecy isn't easy in the celeb world, it's worth a shot if you really want it," he says. "My sense is that Sandra Bullock may be pretty sincere in her desire to lead as normal a life as possible."

*courtesy usa today