Everything we know about Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness’ adopted children, Oscar and Ava

Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness have split, but maintain their family “has been and always will be our highest priority”, here’s what we know about their two children.

When Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness announced they were splitting after 27 years of marriage, the couple said their family “has been and always will be our highest priority”.

In a joint statement to US People magazine, the couple said they had been “blessed” to be together in a “wonderful, loving marriage”, but their “journey was shifting” after almost three decades together.

Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness have called it quits after 27 years of marriage. Picture: Tiziana Fabi/AFP.

In that time, the couple raised two children: Oscar, 23, and Ava, 18 – who they adopted after struggling to get pregnant.

Jackman and Furness have been open about their struggles to fall pregnant and their adoption process, which they described as “wonderful”.

The Wolverine actor revealed he and Furness always planned to have children after meeting on the ABC TV prison drama Correlli set in 1995 – they married a year later in Toorak, Melbourne.

The couple planned to have children naturally and then adopt later in life, Jackman told The Herald Sun in a 2011 profile, but things didn’t go to plan, and Furness went through two miscarriages after IVF courses.

“We thought we’d have a kid or two biologically and then adopt. But when we decided we’d had enough of IVF, we went ahead with adoption,” he told the paper.

The couple adopted their eldest son Oscar in 2000 and daughter Ava five years later.

Jackman and Furness are proud parents of their children Oscar Maximilian and Ava Eliot when they were babies. Picture: ABC

“From the moment we started the adoption process, all the anxiety went away. I don’t think of them as adopted – they’re our children,” he told The Herald Sun.

“Deb and I are believers in … I suppose you could call it destiny. We feel things happened the way they are meant to. Obviously, biologically wasn’t the way we were meant to have children.”

Adoption became a big part of their lives, with Furness working with the Worldwide Orphans Foundation and fronting National Adoption Awareness Week every year.

The Greatest Showman actor also revealed that the couple “specifically requested” to adopt bi-racial children because there was “more of a need”.

“People will wait 18 months to adopt a little blonde girl; meanwhile, bi-racial children are turned away,” he told People magazine in 2007.

Jackman and Furness are proud parents of their children Oscar Maximilian and Ava Eliot when they were babies. Picture: Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP.

Oscar Maximilian Jackman, 23

Jackman and Furness haven’t thrown their children into the spotlight, but they certainly haven’t hidden them either, openly gushing about them in interviews over the years.

Jackman revealed Oscar used to hang around film sets with his father – “it might have had something to do with the fact that, deep down, he wanted to make sure I was spending time with him”, he told the Herald Sun.

Oscar is the eldest son of Jackman and Furness.

They adopted him when he was a baby. Picture: ABC

Even so, Oscar was apparently not fussed about his dad’s movie star status until he figured out he could use it to his advantage, and the Boy from Oz became a “wingman” to his then-13-year-old son.

“Once he was on the beach. He was talking to a girl … who I guess to be about 15, and he started walking towards me,” Jackman told Entertainment Tonight in 2018.

“He came up to me, and he started walking ahead of the girl, and he goes: ‘Dad, dad, dad, she’s coming over. I told her you’re Wolverine, just go with it.’ I was like, ‘I am the wingman for my 13-year-old boy’.”

Furness has also been open about embracing her children’s heritage, which, for Oscar, reportedly included African-American, Bosnian, Hawaiian and Cherokee ancestry.

“When my son was younger, he found out he was part Bosnian, so we went and got this Croatian/Bosnian cookbook, and he was very proud to carry that around when he was seven-years-old,” the actor, producer and director told People in 2020.

Oscar became an older brother to Ava in 2005.

After turning 18, Oscar decided to meet his biological family. His mother died in 2005 and father is unknown, but he did meet his biological sisters Olivia and Nyomi, who were raised by their aunt (mum’s sister) in Iowa.

He graduated high school in 2019 and has reportedly been living in New York City since.

Ava Eliot Jackman, 18

Jackman and Furness adopted their daughter Ava as a newborn in 2005.

At the time, Jackman told People he was “a little more relaxed” about parenting his second child, but revealed he felt protective of his little girl.

“I hold her and think, ‘I don’t want you to face anything bad ever in your life’,” he said in 2006.

Jackman said his daughter Ava was “so much like” her adopted mother.

In 2020 Furness revealed to People that the couple also worked to honour Ava’s Mexican heritage and had taken her travelling there.

“We completely embrace the ancestors and the extended family; they‘re family to us. And it’s in there, even though it’s generational. It may be subtle, but it’s in there,” she told the magazine.

Jackman has gushed about his daughter being “so much like Deb”, and an independent from a young age.

He also revealed she was even a fan of his work, but perhaps more because she was “starstruck” by the people he was working with, especially on the set of The Greatest Showman.

“My daughter said, ‘This is the best movie you’ve ever done,’” he told E! Insider about her feedback in 2018.

The couple adopted Ava when she was a newborn.

Her parents have gushed about their daughter. Picture: Toby Zerna

He said Ava was a “massive” fan of Zendaya, who he co-starred with in the musical film, and she flocked to the film set with her friends.

“I’ve never seen her starstruck. She was totally starstruck.”

But the shine soon wore off for Ava, who apparently picked up her parents’ flair for performing once the film came out and her dad became a big distraction to her dance lessons.

“After The Greatest Showman I had 60 young girls in their tutus coming up to me and my daughter says, ‘you are not coming to dance again!’,” he told Closer magazine, per the Daily Mail.

It is unclear where Ava calls “home”, but she lived with her family in New York City through the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.