Divorce papers were filed Friday in Austin, Texas, where the 45-year-old Oscar-winning actress has a home. The impending end of her five-year marriage to Jesse James came as no surprise on the heels of reports that the motorcycle mogul had been cheating on her and that the couple had already separated.
Instead, the bombshell, set off by Bullock in an interview with People magazine, published online Wednesday, was the news that she brought a newborn son home to California earlier this year and has been raising him unbeknownst to almost anyone.
Bullock and James began the adoption process four years ago, according to the People article. They brought 3½-month-old Louis Bardo Bullock home in January but decided to keep the news to themselves until after the Academy Awards.
The baby is named after jazz great Louis Armstrong, who had touched Bullock with his signature song, "What a Wonderful World," she said in the interview. The child was born in New Orleans, a city where Bullock and James had both spent time after Hurricane Katrina.
The baby became available during "the media craziness of the awards season," she said. Deciding to shield Louis from that turmoil, she kept his arrival hidden from all but a few trusted associates and loved ones.
"Anything we did with Louis had to be pre-planned like a CIA mission," she said. "Just the doctors' visits were filled with decoys and dark cars . ... People that I had worked with for years couldn't understand why I wouldn't let them into my house for (Oscar ceremony gown) fittings."
The sleeplessness almost any new mother knows remained a mystery to Bullock's makeup artist, who wondered why she needed "copious amount of concealer."
Meanwhile, her husband had been keeping secrets of his own, which spilled out with reports that he had cheated on Bullock throughout their marriage. Those cheating allegations became public within days of Bullock's winning the Oscar on March 7 for best actress for her role in the blockbuster "The Blind Side."
Bullock and James met in 2003 and were married two years later. It seemed like an odd pairing - the Hollywood actress often called "America's Sweetheart" marrying the tattooed biker who had been wed twice before, designed custom motorcycles and starred in reality shows such as "Monster Garage" and "Jesse James Is a Dead Man."
It was the first marriage for Bullock, who became the devoted stepmom to James' kids: Sunny, 6; Jesse Jr., 12; and Chandler, 15.
After the cheating scandal broke, James publicly apologized to Bullock and his children. He recently returned home after a 30-day stay in a treatment facility where he sought help for "personal issues," People said.
In a statement posted Wednesday on the People website, James called Bullock "the love of my life, but considering the pain and devastation I have caused her, it would be selfish to not let her go."
Bullock's response?
"I did the only thing I could do," she told People, "and that was to pack enough clothes to live on, get all of Louis' things and get out of town. My main concern was Louis."
According to the divorce filing, Bullock and James no longer live together, and the marriage "has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that ... prevents any reasonable expectations of reconciliation."
Asked by People whether James will have any formal role in raising Louis, Bullock said: "I will be adopting as a single parent. Anything else will be taken day by day."
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AP Entertainment Writer Carol Deegan in New York and Associated Press Writer April Castro in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
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