In recent years, the story of Natalia Grace has been highly controversial and widely reported on numerous daytime talk shows, podcasts, and documentary series, drawing attention from all sectors of society.
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03-25, 2025Natalia Grace is a Ukrainian woman who was adopted by an American family as a child. A series of bizarre events subsequently unfolded, ultimately leading to her adoptive parents, Kristine Barnett and Michael Barnett, facing neglect charges.
Natalia, who has a disability, testified that she was forced to live alone after being abandoned by her adoptive parents in an inaccessible apartment. The new Disney+ miniseries, "The Good American Family," presents these events in a dramatized fashion.
However, the show's actors admit that this stranger-than-fiction story has been adapted to cater to true crime enthusiasts. Here's the real story behind "The Good American Family."
Who is Natalia Grace? She has spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, a form of dwarfism. In 2008, she was first adopted from Ukraine and brought to the United States by a couple from New Hampshire. According to court records, by 2010, the couple returned Natalia to the adoption agency. Subsequently, she was adopted by the Barnetts and taken to live in Hamilton County, Indiana.
When Natalia lived with the Barnetts, her birth certificate stated she was born in 2003, but her adoptive parents claimed that certain behaviors and physical characteristics soon made them suspicious of her age. The Barnetts also claimed that Natalia began exhibiting threatening behavior towards them and their three biological sons.
Over the next two years, the Barnetts had Natalia undergo psychological and physical examinations for various medical services. This led the couple to petition an Indiana court to legally change Natalia's birth year from 2003 to 1989, based on assessments from a primary care physician and a social worker.
Eleven days later, without any evidentiary hearing and without providing Natalia with a guardian ad litem, the court granted the Barnetts' request. Natalia did not attend the proceedings and learned of the change while hospitalized at a nearby hospital. After Natalia's birth year was changed, her adoptive parents moved her into her own apartment and helped her obtain disability benefits.
Soon after, the local child protective services received a report that Natalia was an abandoned child. An investigation was launched but ultimately shelved due to the legal change in Natalia's birth year. The Barnetts moved Natalia to another apartment, paid a year's rent, but provided no additional financial support before moving to Canada with their biological children.
This would be the last time Natalia saw the Barnetts. Shortly after the Barnetts moved to Canada, Natalia befriended Antwon and Cynthia Mans and soon moved in with them.
Between 2014 and 2017, the Mans attempted to rectify Natalia's situation by applying for guardianship. Michael contested the request, citing Natalia's age change order, and the court advised the Mans to first have the order rescinded before attempting to apply for guardianship again.
Things were quiet for the next two and a half years. It wasn't until September 2019 that Kristine and Michael Barnett were each charged with neglect in connection with Natalia's treatment. Less than two weeks after the charges were made public, the now-divorced Barnetts began a media blitz.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Kristine claimed she began to suspect Natalia's age after seeing that Natalia had "full pubic hair." She also believed Natalia had started menstruating. Kristine claimed Natalia was violent and tried to harm her sons and herself, including trying to push her into an electric fence and standing over her with a knife.
Michael, in an October 2019 interview with Good Morning America, repeated claims that Natalia was violent towards the family, including placing thumbtacks around the house for them to step on. He also made two appearances on The Dr. Oz Show and one on Inside Edition, as well as in Indianapolis television market media.
Due to the excessive media attention, a local judge issued a gag order against Kristine and Michael Barnett on October 28, 2019. A month later, Natalia gave a televised interview with Dr. Phil, where she denied all allegations that she had tried to harm the Barnetts or their sons.
What role did the movie "Orphan" play in this? "Orphan" is a 2009 horror film about Esther, a nine-year-old Russian orphan who is adopted by an American family. After Esther begins murdering those around her, it is revealed that she is actually a 33-year-old woman using her small stature to pose as a child.
The film was heavily referenced and linked to Natalia's story during Kristine Barnett's initial interview with the Daily Mail. In the second season of the documentary series "The Curious Case of Natalia Grace," Natalia claimed that the film was the inspiration for her adoptive parents' attacks on her.
"Everything that Kristine and Michael are saying that I've done is a lie. It's all copied from the movie 'Orphan,'" Natalia said in the series. "Ukrainian girl, Russian girl, yes. Orphan, yes. All these crazy things. Standing at the end of the bed with a knife, yes."
Were Kristine and Michael Barnett convicted of neglect? No. In late 2022, Michael Barnett was found not guilty of neglect by an Indiana jury.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that the Barnetts abandoned Natalia in a second-floor apartment where she could not navigate the stairs, without a walker or wheelchair, and without knowing the city. She testified that she learned everything about life, including how to read, write, and wash her hair, from the Mans.
However, the defense successfully argued that Natalia "wanted nothing to do with the Barnetts. She was looking forward." Three weeks before Kristine Barnett's trial was set to begin, her charges were dismissed, with the county prosecutor citing "insufficient evidence."
Where is Natalia Grace now? In 2023, after medical testing and DNA analysis, Natalia's birth year was restored to 2003. She gave an interview to People magazine in January 2025, where she shared that she "escaped" the Mans' home in 2023 after the Mans exerted control and limited who she could talk to.
She now lives with friends, a married couple named Nicole and Vincent DePaul, and their family, who also have dwarfism, and is currently working towards her high school diploma. "Being alive today is a blessing because looking back... I should have been dead," she said.
Is "The Good American Family" a true story? As with many recent "based on a true story" miniseries, viewers should take the events presented in "The Good American Family" with a grain of salt. According to promotional materials, "The Good American Family" is inspired by Natalia's story but is told from multiple perspectives to "explore the issues of perspective, bias, and trauma."
But the show's stars have confirmed that it is not a completely factual retelling of this strange and sad story. Ellen Pompeo, who plays Kristine Barnett, told Variety, "We are posing what our version of this story could be, so it's not a verbatim retelling of what they went through."
"That's really what we do here, I think, in Hollywood. We make entertainment, hopefully that provokes thought, and we take a set of circumstances and put our spin on it." "The Good American Family" is now streaming on Disney+.
