Madonna's emotional sacrifice for youngest son revealed as he turns 19: 'You stole my heart'

Madonna' s youngest son David turns 19 on September 24, 2024, and the 66-year-old singer paid a sweet tribute.

"Happy birthday, David," she wrote alongside a snap of her hugging her son from behind. She added a flower, heart and cake emoji, and continued: "You stole my heart 19 years ago!"

© Madonna

She also shared a series of other snaps the pair had taken over the years, from his youth through to recent times including his performances live on stage during her recent world tour.

Madonna met David in October 2006 when he was a young boy, only weeks old, in Malawi. She had been visiting the country with her then-husband Guy Ritchie, and the pair had the support of David's biological father as the young boy had been battling pneumonia after surviving malaria and tuberculosis; it took 18 months for the adoption process to be confirmed.

© Madonna

Madonna was already mom to daughter Lourdes with Carlos Leon, and son Rocco, whom she had welcomed with husband Guy in 2000, and she went on to welcome three more children via adoption: Mercy , now 18, and twins Estere and Stella, now 11.

The superstar has always been happy to put her children's needs before her own, however, as in 2017 it emerged that she had relocated to Portugal as David has joined a national youth academy for soccer.

© Instagram

"Madonna is no longer a tourist, she now lives in Lisbon," Portuguese weekly magazine Visão reported in 2007, and it emerged that David had joined the Benfica training center in Seixal, a 30-minute drive from Lisbon.

"I was desperate to put him in the best schools with the best coaches, but the level of soccer in the United States is much lower than in the rest of the world. I noticed his frustration," Madonna later revealed in an interview with Vogue in 2018.

© Getty

By 2021 however, David and the family had moved back to the US, with David enrolling at the Juventus academy in Los Angeles.

He later quit soccer, and is now a budding musician and model  living in New York with his girlfriend , Maria Atuesta, a 21-year-old fellow model.

The teen shared the news with fans during a social media Q&A: "It’s lovely to experience it being nine o’clock at night, me being hungry and realizing that I don’t have enough money to get food and scavenging. It’s fun to be young.”