Where Does Natalia Grace Live Now? Her New Home After Escaping The Barnetts
Lea Veloso
If you’re catching up with new episodes of the ID documentary, you might be wondering where Natalia Grace lives now. The case involving the Ukrainian-born adoptee gained worldwide attention by a series of accusations.
In 2010, Natalia Grace was adopted by an American couple, Kristine and Michael Barnett. Because of her sophisticated language and other behaviors, the family 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.
The couple filed a petition to change Natalia’s age to 22. The Barnetts moved from their home in Indiana to Canada, leaving Natalia behind in an apartment by herself. The parents were later charged with neglect of a dependent. Prosecutors couldn’t charge the couple with neglect of a child because of Natalia’s court-ordered age change.
In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, Natalia confronts her adoptive dad Michael as they sit face to face in years and follows the “adoption saga and the Barnetts’ allegations from Natalia’s perspective, offering insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnetts’ 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” according to the synopsis.
So where does Natalia Grace live now? Read more to find out.
Where does Natalia Grace live now?
Natalia Grace currently lives in Indiana after she was taken in by Antwon and Cynthia Mans in 2014. To this day, she claims, per reports, that she is 19.
In November 2019, Cynthia told Dr. Phil that Natalia was never violent to their family. “We have other children. We have a grandson. [Natalia] does nothing but love her siblings and her nephew.”
In 2022, Michael was found not guilty of three counts of neglect and conspiracy to commit neglect of a dependent, according to the Associated Press. Meanwhile, Kristine had all charges dropped in 2023 according to WTHR. The former couple divorced in 2020.
In The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks, she comes clean about her experiences with the Barnetts. “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.”
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 questioned him further about his statement. “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.”
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks premieres across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1 at 9 pm ET.
