Imagine questioning the identity of your own adopted daughter. In the new Disney+ series, Good American Family, a Midwestern couple adopt a seven-year-old with a rare form of dwarfism called Natalia Grace – only to accuse her of lying about her age. It’s a chilling premise, but it’s also a true story.

As true crime fans undoubtedly flock to the new show, which tells the story through multiple perspectives, they will find themselves wondering which parts are true. Where is Natalia, played by Imogen Faith Read, now? Why did Kristine and Michael Barnett, played by Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo and The Morning Show’s Mark Duplass, accuse her of lying? Did she actually lie about her age?

‘As they begin to raise her alongside their three biological children, mystery emerges around her age and background, and they slowly start to suspect she may not be who she says she is,’ the synopsis reads. ‘As they defend their family from the daughter they’ve grown to believe is a threat, she fights her own battle to confront her past and what her future holds, in a showdown that ultimately plays out in the tabloids and the courtroom.’

What happened between Natalia Grace and her adoptive parents?

Natalia Grace is a Ukrainian girl with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SEDc), which is a rare form of dwarfism. According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the condition is a ‘rare genetic disorder that results in short stature and skeletal anomalies that primarily affect the spine and long bones of the arms and legs’.

She was adopted by a couple based in New Hampshire in 2008, but according to the Indiana Court of Appeals she was re-listed for adoption two years later. This is when Kristine and Michael Barnett adopted her, believing she was six or seven years old.

When did the Barnetts become suspicious of Natalia?

As with most true crime dramas, there was a docuseries about the subject that came first. In Investigation Discovery’s three-season series about the case, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, Michael described Kristine’s shock when she first gave Natalia a bath and discovered she had full pubic hair. He later claimed Natalia had already started her period and was hiding bloody underwear in their home.

According to Time, Michael alleged that his adopted daughter would try to urinate on their six-year-old son Ethan and would occasionally defecate in the car. Other alleged instances included Natalia taking her brother’s toys and hiding knives in her bedroom. In one serious accusation, the family claimed Natalia threatened to kill them while they were sleeping.

In another reenacted in the Disney+ show, Kristine allegedly caught Natalia trying to poison her coffee with cleaning fluid. In the docuseries, Natalia claimed Kristine was the one who staged the poisoning. Natalia then accused her adoptive mother of hitting her with a belt, pepper-spraying her eyes and giving her three times the recommended dose of her prescribed medication.

‘I feel like I have to defend myself and be like, “Do I look like somebody that could push someone twice my size into a fence? Do I look like I could even grip a knife?”’ she said. ‘I feel like I was brainwashed by the Barnetts. Kristine coached me to lie about my age and say I tried to murder my parents. Why would you do that to your child?’

Did Natalia lie about her age?

Two years after adopting Natalia, the Barnetts legally changed her age to 22. After petitioning the Marion County Probate Court, they were allowed to alter her birth year from 2003 to 1989 ‘based on age estimates provided by a primary care physician and social worker’, according to court documents obtained by Today.

The following year, the Barnetts and their three sons relocated to Canada, leaving Natalia to live alone in an apartment in Lafayette. According to the Indiana Court of Appeals, they claimed they helped her by ‘obtaining disability benefits and supportive services to help her transition to life as an adult’. However, Natalia contested those claims in the docuseries.

She claimed the apartment she lived in was not fully accessible and that she could not reach the hobs, shelves or mailbox and alleges that she had no phone to call for help if she needed it.

What happened to Natalia?

After a month of living alone, Natalia started talking to her neighbour Cynthia Mans, who she later moved in with. Cynthia lived with her husband, Christian pastor Antwon Mans, and their 10 children. In 2023, they formally adopted her.

She now lives with her current guardians, Nicole and Vincent DePaul, a couple based in New York who both have dwarfism. They had reportedly attempted to adopt her before she was adopted by the Barnetts. Natalia has since accused the Mans family of extorting her for money and the DePauls have helped her obtain a lawyer to try to recover her funds.

What is Natalia’s real age?

A DNA test conducted by the medical lab TruDiagnostics refuted claims that Natalia was posing as an adult. The test determined that she is approximately 22 years old, indicating she was around nine years old when the Barnetts adopted her.

Responding to the news, Natalia said: ‘This one little piece of paper throws every single lie that the Barnetts has said right into the trash with a match.’

What happened to the Barnetts?

Michael and Kristine were charged with multiple counts of neglecting a dependent in 2019. Following an investigation, Michael was found not guilty in October 2022 on three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent. In March 2023, all charges against Kristine were dismissed.

However, their marriage did not survive the scandal. The couple got divorced in 2014, and in the docuseries, Michael claimed he was manipulated and mistreated by his ex-wife. ‘I had the same monster you did,’ he said. ‘I was exceptionally controlled and put down and threatened, was minimalised, 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.’

Kristine did not feature in the series, but she responded to the claims last January via a post on Facebook. ‘Natalia was a very much loved and cared for member of my family. She was not abused by anyone in my family. Let’s set straight to these allegations,’ she wrote. ‘Nobody ever took a belt to Natalia and the allegations that she was “beaten” are just plain false. Any discipline of Natalia was very minimal and was not out of the bounds of normal parenting. If anything it was overly permissive as we all felt a tremendous amount of sympathy for Natalia and loved her while she lived with us.’

She then reiterated that all Natalia’s accusations had already been investigated and were ‘dismissed as unfounded’. Kristine added, ‘Living with Natalia did come with constant allegations about her treatment, which I believe was to lead people away from investigating her personal behaviours which were extreme and usually of some sort of sexual or hurtful towards others nature.’

‘She has alleged abuse by anyone who has had long-term contact with her as well as neighbours, teachers and even children that she claims were abusive to her. In my experience they all were not abusing her.’

How does Good American Family tackle the story?

The eight-part series is told from multiple points of view on a shifting timeline to reflect the conflicting narratives of its central characters. The only person who sold their rights to the story for the series was Michael Barnett.

‘Unless one knows the details of the Grace case, it’s best to go in as blind as possible, the show a twisting test of allegiance that challenges who you believe and why you might believe them,’ reads The Guardian review of the show.

Speaking about her role in an interview with The New York Times Pompeo said, ‘There’s three sides to every story. Or six sides. Or nine. That is why art keeps us alive: Because everybody gets to see things their way, to make sense of them.’