“You have to operate like the CIA,” Bullock said of keeping her two children, Louis and Laila, out of the public eye
Credit: Monica Schipper/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Sandra Bullock revealed that she once used a hockey bag to hide her son Louis from paparazzi amid her split with ex-husband Jesse James in 2010
- She said that she hid her son at the time because “no one knew I had a newborn”
- The actress has spoken about her protectiveness as a mom in the past and the challenges of maintaining her children’s privacy
Sandra Bullock has taken extreme measures to protect her son Louis.
The Practical Magic 2 star, 62, revealed while chatting with Jennifer Aniston, 57, for Interview Magazine that she once hid her then-newborn son from paparazzi using a household item she found in her closet.
“I was just cleaning out the closet, and I found these hockey bags for stuffing clothes in for travel,” she recalled, adding that it eventually came in handy after she filed for divorce from ex-husband Jesse James following his infidelity.
The Gravity actress said that when that happened, she had to act quickly in order to protect her son — whose adoption had not yet been publicly revealed at the time.
Credit: Kate Green/Getty
“Child Protective Services, do not come after me,” she joked, continuing, “but when the poop hit the fan for me … I realized I had to get out of the house because the paparazzi were going to descend, and no one knew I had a newborn.”
“So, I put him in his car carrier, put it in the hockey bag, and zipped the hockey bag around him,” she continued. “Then I carried the hockey bag to the car, as though I was just carrying any random hockey bag.”
Bullock eventually revealed Louis’ adoption to PEOPLE in April 2010, the same month she announced her divorce from James. The actress, who later welcomed daughter Laila via adoption in 2015, opened up about the lengths she went to in order to protect her children’s privacy.
“You have to operate like the CIA. If you’re surrounded by good people, you’ll be fine,” she shared.
“But if people near you mean you harm, no matter how covert you are and how much pre-planning you do, your privacy is information that brings them cash. I had it happen recently and it broke my heart,” she added.
The Proposal star has primarily kept her life as a mom out of the public eye, but she has opened up about her protectiveness over her kids while chatting with PEOPLE at Practical Magic 2‘s European premiere.
“The fearfulness of what I think to be normal, that is me to the core,” she said. “And my children will tell you the same.”
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“I think any mother will tell you [that] all you want is for them to not have the same pain as you did. But guess what? That’s not their journey,” she added.
Credit: Sandra Bullock/Instagram
She has also shared some insight into her experiences with her children on social media from time to time. For Mother’s Day 2026, she shared a rare image of her and her two kids on Instagram as she wrote about the importance of motherhood.
“To all the mamas, No matter how you came to be, Happy Mother’s Day,” she captioned the photos. “We are all bound by this honor of a lifetime.”
Practical Magic 2 is in theaters Sept. 10.
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