True crime-inspired TV shows tend to fascinate and captivate audiences with their dramatic adaptations, and Hulu’s upcoming limited series looks to be no different. Inspired by the real-life story of Natalia Grace, Good American Family focuses on the disturbing story of a Midwestern couple who adopt a young girl with a rare form of dwarfism. Their lives are forever changed when they begin to suspect their new daughter is not a child at all.
Natalia’s story was first publicized in 2019 after her adoptive parents, former Indiana natives Michael and Kristine Barnett, who will be played by Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Mark Duplass (The Morning Show) in Good American Family, were charged with neglect, which they denied.
The dramatization is told from multiple perspectives and explores themes of bias, trauma, and conflicting narratives in its efforts to present the case from various viewpoints rather than adhere to one version of events. Here are 10 real-life facts to know ahead of the series premiere, most of which come directly from the docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, from the parties involved.
1. Natalia’s diagnosis and U.S. arrival
Ukrainian orphan Natalia Grace suffers from spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, a rare genetic disorder affecting the bones and spine, resulting in small stature and other skeletal abnormalities. She first came to the United States in 2008 and was placed with a couple who eventually turned her away for undisclosed reasons. She would remain an orphan for the next two years.
2. The Barnetts adopted Natalia in 2010
At the time the Barnett family adopted Natalia in 2010, they were told she was 6 years old. They later claimed her to be an adult woman with a mental illness, citing puberty and adult teeth. The Barnetts further claimed Natalia’s genetic disorder made her appear far younger than she was, that she was scamming them, was violent, and regularly terrorized their family by trying to kill them. They even claimed she poured bleach into Kristine’s coffee and stood over their beds holding a knife at night. These are claims Natalia denies. After that, the Barnetts, who have three sons of their own, started contacting medical experts for the truth.
3. Natalia’s birth records were changed in 2012
Doctors, DNA evidence, genetic professionals, and a Ukrainian woman claiming to be Natalia’s birth mother were called in to court to help determine Natalia’s real age. In 2012, a Marion County, Indiana, judge altered Natalia’s Ukrainian birth records to say she was 22 years old, not 8, despite medical reports confirming a) that she was a child and b) a lack of solid evidence to prove otherwise.
4. The Barnetts cut ties with Natalia in 2013
Once Natalia Grace was considered an adult by the state, her adoptive family no longer had any obligation to care for her. So, what did the Barnetts do? They set Natalia up with an ID and public assistance, then moved her into an upstairs apartment. Next, they packed up their family and relocated to Canada, cutting off all contact with Natalia. She was evicted from the apartment a year later.
5. Natalia finds a new family in 2016
After the Barnetts abandoned Natalia, she moved into the guardianship of neighboring couple Antwon and Cynthia Mans, who discovered she was living alone and took her in. They have maintained that they believed she was a child when they met her, and that Natalia never showed any signs of violence toward them. The Manses officially adopted Natalia in 2023.
6. The Barnetts are arrested in 2019
The Barnetts were arrested and charged with neglect, abandonment, and endangering their adopted daughter in 2019. Prosecutors also alleged that the Barnetts didn’t keep up with Natalia’s need for surgeries and, as a result, Natalia was forced to live in extreme pain. The amended affidavit, per USA Today, casted doubt on the Barnett’s claim that they believed Natalia was an adult, citing dental records from 2011 and 2012 that indicate she was “8 or 9 in 2011 and between 6 and 9 in 2012.” Michael Barnett was acquitted in 2022, and charges against Kristine Barnett were dismissed in 2023.
7. The Curious Case of Natalia Grace docuseries premieres in 2023
The convoluted saga of Natalia Grace was unpacked in a shocking Investigation Discovery docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The first installment presented the case’s backstory and largely focused on Michael Barnett’s perspective as well as the Barnett’s argument that Natalia was an adult. Neither Kristine nor Natalia participated. The docuseries is three seasons long and streaming on Max.
8. Natalia speaks up in 2024
Natalia was the central focus of a docuseries followup, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, which aired in 2024. In it, she claimed the Barnetts were abusive to her and concocted the whole story. Natalia Speaks even featured a confrontation between Natalia and Michael, who gave an emotional apology to his former daughter for his actions and said he’d also been abused by Kristine. This second installment ended with closure for Natalia and Michael, and with Natalia taking a DNA test to determine her true age, which proved she was 6 years old at the time Michael and Kristine adopted her. Its shocking ending appeared to suggest all was not fine, though, when a phone call came in to producers implying Natalia was at odds with the Mans family.
9. Where is Natalia Grace now?
The third installment of the docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter, aired in January 2025. It followed Natalia’s friction with the Manses and included more claims of lies and abuse, this time physical. Furthermore, it explored Natalia’s feelings about being brainwashed by the Manses, who allegedly run a religious cult with their large family of adopted children in a Tennessee. It also touched on the accusation that the Manses have been stealing and are still in control of Natalia’s disability money, even after an ongoing conflict prompted her to escape from them under the cover of night while at church. She left them to move in with the DePauls, a couple with dwarfism who’d previously tried to adopt Natalia before the Barnetts did.
Today, Natalia is still living with the DePaul family and has a long-distance boyfriend in the UK. She is allegedly estranged from the Manses, who remain her legal parents.
10. What happened to Kristine and Michael Barnett?
The Barnetts split up long before they made their claims against Natalia public in 2019. The Lafayette Journal & Courier out of Indiana reported that Michael Barnett left Canada in late 2013 and moved back to Indianapolis. Per court documents accessed by USA Today, Kristine said Michael moved back to Indiana after an unspecified "incident impacting the children" in fall 2013 before filing for divorce in February 2014. Their divorce was finalized in 2018. Michael later remarried.
The same year their divorce was finalized, Kristine published a book, "The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius and Autism," about her son Jacob's life experience and how he excelled at school (he is apparently a math and science prodigy with, per his mother in her book, "an IQ higher than Einstein's and a photographic memory, who taught himself calculus in two weeks). Though she is reported to currently live in Bradenton, Florida, Kristine has largely stayed out of the public eye since Natalia's story aired on television.
As far as the Barnett's sons--Jacob, Wesley, and Ethan--go, Jacob and Kristine are known outside of Natalia's case in the academic world, as Kristine claimed to have turned Jacob into a genius in her memoir. As a child prodigy, Jacob was the subject of several televised interviews over the years and presented his own Ted Talk as a teenager. He attended Princeton University and became the world's youngest astrophysics researcher. He also founded a business called Wheel LLC and a charity called Jacob's Place. Today, Jacob is a theoretical physicist at Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. There is no word on where his brothers are.
Good American Family premieres March 19, 2025, with a two-episode release on Hulu. The remaining episodes will be released weekly through April 30, 2025.