I'll watch just about any based-on-a-true-story drama series because, honestly, sometimes life is just crazier than fiction. And the story behind Hulu's new show Good American Family is so wild you just can't make this stuff up.
It tells the story of the Barnett family, who adopt a Ukrainian girl with dwarfism. The girl, Natalia, becomes a part of their family, but they soon start to suspect that she may not be exactly who she says she is. The family claims she's much older than she alleges and, eventually, makes a pretty shocking move to try to get away from her. In real life, both the Barnett parents and Natalia Grace have pled their cases in the court of public opinion (and the court of law) and Good American Family gets into those vastly different perspectives.
If you want to learn more about the real-life Natalia Grace and what actually happened to her, here's a breakdown of everything you need to know.
Who was the real Natalia Grace?
Natalia Grace was born in Ukraine and soon after was diagnosed with a rare form of dwarfism. She was placed in an orphanage by her mother, Anna, and a few years later she was adopted by an American couple (not the Barnetts, though, they come later). We don't know too much about this couple—the Ciccones—but they soon gave Natalia up due to her disruptive behavior, according to court filings.
That's when the Barnetts came into the picture, adopting Natalia at, they were told, the age of 6. The Barnetts took her home to Indiana where they lived with their three biological children. Although the couple was excited for the new addition to their family, they soon started to become suspicious that Natalia was older than she claimed to be, and they even claim they started fearing for their safety.
The Barnetts also claim Natalia was much taller, more developed, and had a more extensive vocabulary than another child her age with the same form of dwarfism would have had. They also said she already had her period and pubic hair, and were suspicious that she spoke English without any accent despite having only been in the U.S. for a short period of time. The dad, Michael, has also claimed Natalia allegedly threatened to stab the family and tried to poison his wife, Kristine. The family also said she was urinating and defecating in the car, throwing her siblings' toys into the street, and even tried dragging Kristine into an electric fence during a trip to a dairy farm (workers from the farm have refuted that claim, saying Kristine was the one acting erratically that day).
What happened to Natalia Grace?
Following the electric fence debacle, Natalia was committed to a hospital for psychological evaluation. Hospital employees heard in the docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace said Natalia was transferred to the adult wing after they saw she had pubic hair and that once she was around the adult male patients, she made some aggressive sexual advances.
Once she was home, Kristine told Natalia she needed to start telling the truth or else she would be sleeping outside. She eventually locked Natalia out of the house. Michael claims he was never going to leave her out there overnight, but she was outside long enough for neighbors to call child services.
With their suspicions continuing to grow, Natalia's adoptive family took her to a few medical professionals: a children's hospital that did a skeletal scan concluding she was about 11 years old and a doctor's office where she was allegedly confirmed to be an adult. In 2012, even with that wildly inconclusive evidence, the Barnetts had Natalia's legal age changed from eight to 22.
With her legally declared an adult, the Barnetts rented Natalia an apartment in Indiana and left her there alone. The family, meanwhile, decided to pack up and move to Canada. Another couple, Anton and Cynthia Mans, saw what was happening to Natalia and took care of her.
In 2019, Michael and Kristine were hit with a number of criminal charges, including neglect of a dependent causing bodily injury and abandoning or cruelly confining a dependent. Michael was ultimately found not guilty—largely because of a video shown in court of Natalia walking down the street and going to the grocery store—and Kristine's case was dismissed. Prosecutors said they were barred from using a lot of evidence, including her original birth certificate, medical records, adoption documents and a statement from her birth mother, all putting her birthdate in September 2003.
A DNA test done in August of 2023 concluded that Natalia was 22 years old at the time, which would have made her about nine years old when the Barnetts adopted her which is older than they were told she was, but it also kinda lines up with the results of the skeletal scan she had back in 2012.
Where is Natalia Grace Now?
Natalia was officially adopted by the Mans family in 2023, but sadly it wasn't a happy ending. There were allegations that the parents were abusive towards her, and neighbors have claimed to have seen Natalia be physically assaulted by the couple. With the help of her boyfriend, Neil, Natalia reached out to the DePauls, now-friends who previously tried to adopt Natalia in 2009 from her first adoptive parents, and formed an escape plan. Nicole DePaul drove from their home in New York to secretly pick Natalia up near her then-home in Nashville. She's been living with the DePauls ever since.
In January of this year, Natalia told People that she's studying for her GED, learning how to drive, and preparing to live independently. She says she wants to become a teacher and have a family of her own one day.
