The Daily Mail is reporting that Jude Law’s baby-mama Samantha Burke is selling the first photos of her and Jude’s daughter Sophia. Allegedly, the price being paid is around $300,000, or roughly 180,000 British pounds (according to the current exchange rate). The Mail believes that Hello! Magazine is paying for the photos, which makes sense. And usually if Hello! gets the pictures, People Magazine will too. My guess is that Hello! and OK! Magazine (both American and UK) were probably bidding for the first pictures.

It honestly doesn’t surprise me at all that Samantha is selling the photos. Allegedly, she was already making deals while she was still pregnant. And, I mean, what else does she have going on? Her career is pretty much “slept with Jude Law once or twice, got pregnant, ka-ching!” In addition to the first baby pictures, apparently Samantha is also going to give an “exclusive” interview. Judging by these “insider” quotes, I think the interview will have a decidedly “pity me” vibe:

The mother of Jude Law’s love-child is believed to have sold the first pictures of their newborn daughter for £180,000.

A team of photographers, believed to work for Hello! magazine, last week arrived at the modest Florida house where Samantha Burke is staying with month-old Sophia.

Miss Burke could be glimpsed posing with her baby under an umbrella inside the £125,000 house in a downmarket area know as the ‘Redneck Riviera’.

Legal experts had predicted the actor’s offer to pay financial support to the 24-year-old model would secure her silence about the fling that led to her pregnancy.

But Miss Burke recently hired a Hollywood publicity agent to sell the rights to exclusive portraits of Sophia, and an interview about her friendship with the 36-year-old Alfie star.

One source said: ‘Samantha may have got pregnant by accident but she’s a smart businesswoman. The child has rarely left the house since her birth and when Samantha has had to take her out for some reason or the other, her face is carefully covered.’

Miss Burke discovered she was expecting Law’s fourth child after they had a brief relationship while he was filming Sherlock Holmes in New York last December.

She is now staying with her mother Lea. Her family have already spoken publicly about Law’s reaction after hearing of her pregnancy. Delores Burke, her grandmother, claimed he had ‘behaved as less than a gentleman’.

‘Samantha is a lovely girl but she is only 24 years old,’ she added. ‘At that age, you think you are a grown-up but you are still very young. He is old enough to know better.’

However, friends of Law have dismissed the allegations. One said: ‘Jude has said from the outset he will support the child, even though he is no longer in a relationship with Samantha. Jude has been a total gentleman.’

Miss Burke’s agent Eileen Koch confirmed last night that the publication rights had been sold for £180,000. Law’s publicist Sarah Keene said: ‘I haven’t any comment to make.’

[From The Daily Mail]

While I’ll agree that at the age of 24, many people are still making dumb mistakes. However, I don’t buy this whole “she’s only 24, she’s a child who was taken advantage of” crap. Samantha knew what she was doing when she hooked up with Jude – and she knew she hit the baby-mama jackpot when she discovered she was pregnant. I’ll buy that Jude was (is) sleazy, and he should use protection (seriously), but Samantha is as much of an adult as Jude, and all of this is as much her responsibility as his.

By the way, two weeks ago when Samantha Burke’s agent confirmed that Jude was the biological father of Sophia, the agent said, “Samantha can confirm that DNA testing has conclusively established that Jude Law is Sophia’s father. Check back in six months. Maybe she and Jude will be getting married.” Considering Samantha’s agent is still trying to attach Jude and Samantha, perhaps Samantha’s family should stop it with the whole “he’s a bad man who took advantage of her” stuff.

Update: Here’s the cover of Hello! thanks to Hello Magazine’s website.

Samantha Burke is seen on September 27, 2009, five days after giving birth to Sophia on September 22, 2009. Jude Law is seen entering the theater for a performance of ‘Hamlet’ on in New York on October 24, 2009. All photos from FAME.