Natalia Grace, the Ukrainian orphan whose story inspired new Hulu drama Good American Family, has shared how she fell in love with a man over Facebook, who helped her plot to escape her adoptive parents
Natalia Grace, whose story has been told in captivating new Hulu drama Good American Family, has shared how she escaped her adoptive family in the middle of the night, with the help of her boyfriend. In a case that initially drew comparisons to the 2009 horror movie Orphan, Ukrainian orphan Natalia was adopted by American couple Kristine and Michael Barnett in the spring of 2010. Just one year later, they abandoned her, claiming she was an evil adult posing as a child.
Kristine claimed that she was shocked to find that the seven-year-old had public hair and was allegedly hiding that she was already having a menstrual cycle. The Barnetts also made disturbing allegations against Natalia, including that she’d threatened them with knives and attempted to poison Kristine’s coffee. In 2012, the Barnetts, who left Natalia behind in an Indiana apartment after fleeing to Canada, successfully petitioned an Indiana court to change their adoptive daughter’s birth year from 2003 to 1989, effectively classifying her as an adult.
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Natalia, who has a rare form of dwarfism known as spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, has always maintained her innocence, and health testing company TruDiagnostic later refuted claims that Natalia had been a grown woman at the time of her adoption. It was determined that she was approximately nine years old when Michael and Kristine adopted her, and her birth year was legally changed back to 2003.
After being abandoned, Natalia, now 21, was taken under the care of guardians Bishop Antwon and Cynthia Mans, who formally adopted her In June 2023. However, this didn’t prove to be her happy ending.
In an interview with People, Natalia alleged that her religious parents, who had 10 other children, controlled her and forbade her from any contact with outsiders.
As detailed in the documentary The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter, several witnesses, including friends and neighbours, alleged they saw the Manses whipping Natalia with a belt and slapping her in the face. Natalia has declined to comment on such allegations when asked by People.
After having lived with the Manses for 10 years in Indiana and then Tennessee, Natalia decided to make her escape with the help of her boyfriend Neil, a man from the UK whom she’d met over Facebook.
With Neil’s assistance, Natalia reached out to Nicole DePaul, 49, and her husband Vince, 51, who had been turned down when they tried to adopt Natalia back in 2009. Over a period of many months, they then carefully devised an escape plan.
It was in December 2023 that Natalia’s plan got underway, with Nicole and her 19-year-old daughter Mackenzie driving from their New York home to collect Natalia from outside of a Nashville church.
Natalia remembered: “The last thing I told my sisters were, ‘You guys go ahead to the church sanctuary and I love you. And then I saw the [DePauls] pull up, and Mack jumped out, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, she’s actually here’. My heart started pounding. I was terrified. I was completely terrified.”
In the documentary, Natalia denied that the Manses were covering up abuses, stating, “Me and my parents are fine. Just because I’m not living with my family doesn’t mean they’re not my family.” The documentary also showed how Antwon and Cynthia discovered Facebook messages Neil sent Natalia, in which he told her the Manses were spiritually manipulating her as well as using her for money.
Cynthia said: “This guy just completely flipped Natalia’s mind against her family, and she was completely manipulated in that moment.” Reflecting on this period, Natalia admitted, “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t me. My mom told me, ‘This is not you; this is not my baby.’ I never once thought about wanting to move out or anything like that until I started talking to [Neil].” She later added: “I will admit my mistakes. I thought I was in love, and it wasn’t right. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Nowadays, Natalia lives with the DePaul family, who are little people like herself. The DePauls have helped Natalia pursue therapy to address her past traumas and say she “wouldn’t hurt a fly”.
Nicole said: “She’s also never done one violent thing ever. Our dogs love her, and they sleep with her. I’m an animal lover. If I didn’t trust her, I wouldn’t leave my babies with her. They’re also a judge of character, as well.”
Not everything has been smooth sailing in the two years since, for example, when the DePauls learned Natalia had been covertly recording them. However, Nicole has reasoned that such incidents are understandable, given Natalia’s diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder (RAD), a behavioral condition which isn’t unusual among children who’ve spent time in orphanages.
Natalie continued: “Did she probably do weird things in the past? Yeah. [But] when you take in a child, you take that child as your own. You don’t just get rid of them when they don’t fit into your puzzle.”
The first five episodes of Good American Family are now available to stream on Disney+, with the following three set to air every Wednesday.
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