NEW YORK (AP) – 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.

Director familiar with Crowe

NEW YORK (AP) – Director Ridley Scott knows a thing or two about working with actor Russell Crowe.

“I think we’re both pains in the neck. That’s probably why we get on,” Scott told Time magazine in an interview for editions on newsstands today.

“Really, what it is is Russell is very smart and therefore asks all sorts of intelligent questions, so if you’re not ready you’re going to get caught in the crossfire. So you’d better be ready,” Scott said. “I’m used to him now. He’s fundamentally a bit of a puppy dog.”

Scott and Crowe have worked together on “Gladiator,” are working on Scott’s new film “A Good Year,” and plan to work together on his next, “American Gangster.”

When asked if he can tell when an audience will embrace one of his movies or not, such as “Kingdom of Heaven,” Scott said: “You can never tell.”

“It was a real passion project, and it’s the film I’m most proud of,” he said. “I think it was treated incredibly unfairly.”