Even though the row regarding her age first erupted 12-years ago, people are still fascinated by the Ukraine-born woman’s story more than a decade on – and luckily for them, a new series about her is in the works.
And according to the Brit actress who is taking on the complicated character of Natalia Grace, it could be on our TV screens sooner than you might have thought.
Back in 2010, US couple Kristine and Michael Barnett adopted the then-six-year-old girl and were informed that she suffered from a rare form of dwarfism – but two years later, they abandoned her.
The pair alleged that Natalia was actually an ‘adult sociopath masquerading as a child’, while also claiming that she had tried to kill them.
The Barnetts successfully petitioned to have her birth age changed from 2003 to 1989, meaning she would legally be recognised as an adult in her 20s, and left Natalia Grace in an apartment in Indiana while they moved to Canada.
In a bid to prove her medical condition or her age wasn’t a lie, Natalia Grace underwent examinations by age specialists and even appeared on an interview with Dr Phil to give her side of the story.
She also went through DNA testing with the company TruDiagnostic, who told her: “Based on all the studies and everything being analysed, you’re more close to 22, which is pretty close to what you think… you’re almost 20.”
The Natalia Grace adoption saga is set to be retold from several perspectives in the new series (Information Discovery)
When her adopted parents abandoned her in 2012 they claimed she was a 22-year-old posing as a child, but according to these results, she would have been around nine when they left her in Indiana.
Charges of neglect were brought against the Barnetts but in 2022, a jury trial acquitted Michael, while the Journal and Courier reports that in 2023 a judge dismissed the charges against Kristine as there was ‘insufficient evidence at trial to prove the charges in this case beyond a reasonable doubt’.
Mental, we know – and Hulu’s upcoming series Orphan is set to delve into it all over again, from various different perspectives of those at the centre of the scandal.
The show will focus on the Barnetts as they come to terms with the possibility that their daughter lied to them, and suspect she may not be who she says she is.
Greys Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo will play Kristine, while The Morning Show’s Mark Duplass will play her husband Michael while Dule Hill and Sarayu Blue will also appear in the new show.
Imogen Faith Reid will star as the Ukrainian (Instagram/@imogenfaith__)
Imogen Faith Reid will portray Natalia Grace in Orphan, which will mark her first major acting appearance.
Back in August, she issued an update on the progress of the series to fans on Instagram, declaring filming had wrapped.
The 4ft’ 3ins actress wrote: “Very, very, late wrap post. I can’t believe I’ve just filmed my first ever TV series and I happen to be playing the main character.
“This experience has been honestly the best experience I have ever had! Every single person was so so supportive and I remember being soo nervous on my first day as it was all soo new to me!!”
Reid went on to praise the cast and crew, as well as adding: “I still can’t believe I got this opportunity, I still pinch myself everyday about what I’ve just done for the last 5 months I’m soo lucky and grateful.
“Thank you for giving me this role and believing in me. This story is for Natalia Grace.”
Take a look at the eerie trailer below:
Husband and wife Kristine and Michael Barnett from Indiana adopted Grace back in 2010 and believed her to be a small child with a rare bone growth disorder.
It wasn’t too long until the happy family dynamic changed after the Barnetts believed that she was secretly an adult attempting to harm their family.
They claimed that she was a 22-year-old who’d made several attempts to kill the couple.
ID Discovery
Kristine and Michael accused her of being an ‘adult sociopath masquerading as a child’ in a bizarre criminal case of fraud.
After the couple deserted Natalia in an apartment in Layfette, Indiana, in 2013, authorities pushed ‘neglect charges’ onto both of them.
Natalia has continuously denied all of the allegations made against her.
“In every lie is a hidden truth, but you gotta dig enough to be able to see it,” she tells viewers in a newly-released trailer.
“This is my side of the story. Do I look like a monster to you?”
The now-34-year-old also confronts her adoptive father in the teaser: “You’re supposed to be my dad. You’re supposed to be the one to protect me.”
In 2019, she denied all of the allegations made against her in an interview on Dr. Phil.
She said: “It’s not true. It’s not true at all. I just want people to hear my side.”
Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office/ID Discovery
The synopsis for the new doc reads: “Picking up where the shocking finale of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace left off, Natalia Speaks dives headfirst into the questions, controversies, and secrets unearthed in the first instalment, but this time, Natalia shares her side of the story.
“The six-part docuseries will also showcase an extensive, emotional sit down between Natalia and adoptive father Michael Barnett as they sit face-to-face for the first time and come to terms with the accusations that have been thrown around in both directions.”
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks will premiere across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, 1 January, airing nightly from 9-11PM ET/PT.
Grace is set to tell her side of the bizarre story in a new documentary The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, during which she comes face-to-face with her adopted dad who accuses her of threatening his family with a knife. You can see how it plays out here:
However, the couple went on to allege that she was actually an adult posing as a child and that she had nefarious plans to harm them.
The Barnetts claimed she was a ‘adult sociopath masquerading as a child’ in a bizarre criminal case of fraud and said she had made several attempts to kill the couple.
After the couple left Grace on her own in an apartment in Layfette, Indiana, in 2013, authorities pushed ‘neglect charges’ onto both of them.
Investigation Discovery
Grace has continuously denied all of the allegations made against her and in 2019, told Dr. Phil: “It’s not true. It’s not true at all. I just want people to hear my side.”
She’s now vowed to share her side of things in the new documentary, which is released next month.
In a trailer, Grace says: “In every lie is a hidden truth, but you gotta dig enough to be able to see it.
“This is my side of the story. Do I look like a monster to you?”
During the documentary, Grace confronts her adoptive father telling him: “I was never in y’all’s room with a knife.”
To which he replies: “You were going to kill everybody.”
Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office/ID Discovery
A synopsis for The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks reads: “Picking up where the shocking finale of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace left off, Natalia Speaks dives headfirst into the questions, controversies, and secrets unearthed in the first instalment, but this time, Natalia shares her side of the story.
“The six-part docuseries will also showcase an extensive, emotional sit down between Natalia and adoptive father Michael Barnett as they sit face-to-face for the first time and come to terms with the accusations that have been thrown around in both directions.”
Three-part documentary The Curious Case of Natalia Grace aired on Investigation Discovery this week and recounted the shocking true story surrounding couple Michael and Kristine Barnett’s unknowing adoption of an adult.
Now, Natalia is ready to tell her side of the story.
Investigation Discovery
Kristine and Michael say that they adopted Natalia Grace back in 2010, believing her to be a six-year-old child from Ukraine.
Shortly after she was brought home, the family’s dynamic changed, and the couple believed that Natalia was secretly an adult who was attempting to kill them and their children.
In 2013, the Barnett family moved away and left Natalia behind in an apartment in Lafayette, Indiana.
Shortly after, the couple were charged with neglect for allegedly abandoning a child.
But the Barnetts pushed back and argued that they were victims of fraud.
Eventually Michael was found not guilty of all charges in 2022, while charges against Kristine were dropped this year.
A number of claims were made against Natalia in the new documentary, including that she was ‘masquerading as a child’, that she was a ‘sociopath’, and that she tried to poison her adoptive mother.
Now, her own follow-up documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, Natalia will open up about her side of the harrowing story.
Investigation Discovery
In a preview of the two-hour documentary special, seen by Entertainment Tonight, Natalia alleged: “The things that Kristine and Michael have said that I have done is a lie.
“I have never done anything that Kristine and Michael have said that I have done.”
Since her experience with Kristine and Michael, Natalia has been adopted by a new couple, Antwon and Cynthia Mans, who maintain that she is a teenager.
“You can ask anybody in my family now,” she says in the upcoming documentary.
“You can ask Bishop Antwon and Cynthia Mans that – just ask them, ‘Has she ever done anything?’ They will tell you who I really am. They’re not going to lie and neither am I.”
She continued: “It’s frustrating. It’s very frustrating to hear everything that’s being said from Kristine and Michael.
Investigation Discovery
“And because I already don’t know who I am and I want to know who I am and what happened to me, but I’m hearing all this stuff that never actually happened from Kristine and Michael.
“I’m like, ‘It’s shocking and it’s frustrating.’ Because that’s not even true. And people are believing what Kristine and Michael are saying without even hearing my side.”
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace aired for three consecutive nights from Monday 29 May on Investigation Discovery. Follow-up Natalia Speaks will air this summer.Ali Condon
We are, of course, talking about the infamous docu-series The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which explores the mind-blowing story of Natalia Grace, a 22-year-old who posed as an adopted six-year-old Ukrainian orphan.
Natalia has a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal, with her case being compared to the movie Orphan, which sees a fully grown adult with shunted growth pretend to be a child in order to infiltrate a family.
Natalia went on to be adopted by Michael and his wife, Kristine in 2010 in the US.
They went on to claim, however, that she ‘threatened to stab’ their children while living with them in Layfette, Indiana, and also tried to ‘poison and kill’ Kristine.
Michael said: “One night, I opened my eyes and Natalia is standing at the foot of the bed with a knife in her hand.”
Investigation Discovery
Kristine also claimed Natalia was already getting periods and had adult teeth, while medical tests looking at Natalia’s bone density indicated she was much older than the family initially thought.
After these shocking incidents, the family then began to grow doubtful over Natalia’s identity and suspected that she was actually an adult illegally posing as a child.
Despite this evidence, the couple were eventually charged with neglect of a dependent after taking off to Canada and leaving Natalia to fend for herself – but not neglect of a child, due to the court-ordered age change.
Natalia has since moved on with a new adoptive family.
However, Michael was found not guilty of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent, while the charges against Kristina were dropped in March.
Now, ahead of the docuseries being released next week, attorney Beth Karas joined TMZ Live to speak about the first episode of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace.
Investigation Discovery
On being asked if the family went back to Ukraine and tried to find birth records or parents, Karas said: “They went to the court with an emergency petition and an affidavit from a doctor who had been treating her for the past few years who said that he did not notice any growth and there was no growth in four years.
“She was supposedly eight at the time. So he said, ‘Well, you stop growing when you’re 18. If she hasn’t had any bone growth in four years, then she’s at least 22’.
“And with a stroke of a pen, he went from age eight to 22 for Natalia. So she theoretically became somebody who could vote, drink, and drive.”
Karas further gave her opinion on being asked how a six-year-old child posed as a 22-year-old woman can actually pull off something so deadly.
“There are people who observed her who lived near her because she had two different apartments, and they come down on a different side whether or not she is an adult or a child.
TMZ
“They observe her riding a bicycle with another child, they also observe her acting out and coming out on men sexually,” she added. “So, was she masquerading as a child?
“I’m not so sure because we are the sum total of our life experiences and we don’t know what her life experiences were until then, even as a child, maybe she was sexually abused as a child, and was acting out because she didn’t know any better.”
Karas added: “She didn’t know her boundaries. But it’s very strange because neighbours who had a lot of contact with her some believe she was an adult and some believe she was a child, and really the viewers are gonna make up their own minds because I really don’t know.”
“I lean one way but I don’t know we’ll ever know the entire truth here.”
The first part of The Curio
