SINGAPORE-BORN diva Anita Sarawak, 57, has everything – but children of her own.

All because of a vow she made as a youth growing up in a broken home.

“I promised myself that if I got married, never to have a child and have a divorce, and make her go through what I had to – it was lonely and very hard,” she told The New Paper on Sunday in a phone interview from Kuala Lumpur, where she is now based.

Indeed, her love life has been tumultous, the stuff of tabloid headlines. She has been divorced three times.

In 2001, she finally found her soulmate, fourth husband Mohamad Mahathir Abdullah – she was 48 and he was a year younger.

By then, it was too late for children, even adopted ones. She said: “The years went by and age caught up with me.”

It was a good thing, then, that Mohamad Mahathir, who is also her manager, came with a “ready-made son” – Matthew, from a previous marriage.

Anita can still remember the first words he said when they first met at the Las Vegas airport, where she lived then. He was 16 then.

She recalled, with a laugh: “He said, ‘Dad, now I know why you want to marry her, she’s good looking!’”

Matthew, now 24, calls Anita by her name.

She said she did not try or need to win him over. “He’s so laid back he can get along with anybody,” she said.

She described him as a “good boy”. The only flaw, she said, was that he is a little spoilt.

“He thinks we have a little machine in the backyard that prints money,” she explained.

She won’t be spending Mother’s Day with her stepson as he is currently studying in the UK.

Instead she would be in the company ofher own stepmother, Datin Umi Kalthom, 75, and her stepsiblings. Her own parents are dead.

Of her stepmother, she said: “I completely adore her.”

Her biological mother, actress Siput Sarawak, gave her discipline. Her father, actor Datuk S Roomai Noor, gave her education. But Datin Umi gave her only hugs and kisses.

“She is still that way,” Anita said. Though Datin Umi had her own children,she never treated Anita differently.

Despite growing up in a broken family – her mother let Anita meet her dad only when she was 7 – she feels she has been fortunate.

“I consider myself very lucky because I have three parents,” she said.

This article was first published in The New Paper