Where’s Natalia Grace Now? Finding Life With A New Family After The Barnetts
She gained international attention when her adoptive family accused her of not being a child but in fact an adult with malicious intent. Now, she’s speaking out for the first time and where Natalia Grace is now is the subject of a new documentary series by ID.
Natalia Grace is a Ukrainian-born girl who gained media attention due to a controversial and widely publicized case. In 2010, she was adopted by an American family, the Barnetts, who because of her sophisticated language and other behaviors, believed that Natalia had a rare form of dwarfism—instead of being a child, as she and the orphanage claimed, she was an adult with psychiatric issues who deceived them. One particular account, the Barnetts said, was when they awoke to Natalia standing over them with a knife.
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They petitioned to have her age legally changed to 22, based on a bone density test. In 2012 and a year later, the Barnetts moved to Canada, leaving Natalia behind to fend for herself when she was only 9 years old. In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, we’re offered exclusive access to Natalia as she shares her story and confronts her former adoptive parents Michael and Kristine Barnett’s accusations head-on.
Throughout six parts, Natalia Speaks retraces her adoption saga and the Barnett’s allegations from Natalia’s perspective, offering insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnett’s home and how much truth there actually is to their claim Natalia was not a 6-year-old Ukrainian orphan with a rare genetic disorder, but rather a homicidal adult intent on harming them and their children. So where is Natalia Grace now?
Where is Natalia Grace now?
Where is Natalia Grace now? She was eventually taken in by Antwon and Cynthia Mans and resides in Indiana. In November 2019, Cynthia told Dr. Phil that: “We have other children. We have a grandson. [Natalia] does nothing but love her siblings and her nephew.”
In her first time speaking out since then, Natalia talks about the many allegations Kristine and Michael have made against her. “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,” Natalia said. “You can ask anybody in my family now. 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. 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,” she goes on to say. “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.”
In the Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, Natalia and Michael confront each other. When Natalia questioned Michael why they adopted her in the first place, Michael said: “I’ve learned recently that you and I had the same monster [in] Kristine, and we are here because we both were incredible victims of an otherworldly type of abuse.”
Natalia asked him to clarify. “This is not easy,” he said. “I had the same monster you did. I was exceptionally controlled and put down, and threatened, was minimalized. Anything that was who I was was ripped from me and I was guided and instructed to be exactly what she wanted me to be.”
Again, Natalia asked him to clarify by what he meant by “threatened”. He explained: “Her favorite threat was taking the boys away from me and making sure I would never see them again.” Natalia asked him why he didn’t leave. “I tried,” Michael said. “And these answers aren’t what you’re looking for, to a degree, but I tried to leave her no less than 10 times. I ended up in the hospital regularly over it.”
Natalia Speaks also features previously unseen evidence and footage, as well as new theories and testimony from an array of voices, including the retired FBI agents who initially investigated Natalia’s case, genetic experts who helped determine Natalia’s true age, and the Tippecanoe County Deputy Prosecutor Jackie Starbuck who prosecuted Michael in his October 2022 trial. In addition, the docuseries sheds light on Natalia’s next chapter, offering a portrait of her life with her new adoptive family and exclusive interviews with her adoptive parents, Bishop Antown and Cynthia Mans.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks premieres across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1 at 9 pm ET.
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