Sandra Bullock’s 8-Year-Old Daughter Laila Makes Rare TV Appearance, Shares Support for Medics

(Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

When Sandra Bullock joined panel show “Red Table Talk” for their Mother’s Day feature home video conference, she introduced a very special person to the show’s hosts: her 8-year-old adopted daughter, Laila.

Young Laila, emulating her mother’s renowned humanitarianism, wanted to deliver a message of thanks to a front line nurse from a local hospital. Since glimpses of the famously private actress’s two children are few and far between, Laila stole the show.

Bullock joined the May 8 segment on Jada Pinkett-Smith’s Facebook talk show, hosted by Jada, her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and Jada’s daughter Willow Smith. Bullock struggled to hold back tears while thanking a nurse named April Buencamino, manager of a hospital unit designated to COVID patients, for her tireless efforts.

“We get to sit here and be home with our families because you are out there doing the hard, hard, hard work,” Bullock told the panel from her kitchen.

“And there isn’t a dinner and grace that goes by without sending you the love and appreciation and gratitude we as a family have because we are safe,” she added, “and we thank you so much.”

The Oscar-winning actress, 55, then asked if Laila would add her own message. Bullock lifted her beaming daughter onto her lap and invited her to say something.

“Thank you, April, for doing everything for ... everything for everyone,” Laila said, blowing kisses to the front line nurse and all three women on the “Red Table Talk” panel.

“Stay safe,” she added.

The actress praised her daughter for her altruism, saying, “She’s the one that’s going to save the world in our family.”

Her appearance on the May 8 TV segment was not the first time Bullock has been involved in virus-relief efforts.

Bullock donated 6,000 N-95 masks to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in April, at the same hospital where the star’s new acquaintance, Buencamino, works. The actress took her children there to educate them on the work of L.A.’s health care personnel during the lockdown.

Bullock’s partner, 54-year-old photographer Bryan Randall, shared a photo of the mask drop-off on Instagram and credited Sandra’s son, Louis Bardo, 10, and Laila for the inspiration. “Kids wanted to give masks,” he wrote, as quoted by the Daily Mail. “6,000 of them went to the warriors on the front lines in downtown L.A.”

“We put masks on the kids with gloves and rolled on down there and deposited so they could see, first-hand, the first responders, and see how hard it is right now,” Bullock explained to the “Red Table Talk” panel.

The Hollywood actress adopted her son, Louis, in 2010, and her daughter, Laila, five years later. Both children were born in Louisiana. “I can tell you absolutely, the exact right children came to me at the exact right time,” Bullock told People in 2018.

Speaking to Entertainment Tonight in 2020, she reflected on how completely her life had changed since adopting Louis and Laila. “You look back on your life and you go, ‘I’ve had a really good life,’” she said. “But once you have children, you go, ‘My life was nothing until you showed up.’”

“I mean, I was wasting time, literally wasting time every day until they showed up,” the star continued, “and now I know exactly what my life is about because of them. I’m so blessed.”