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Natalia Grace to Father Michael Barnett in New Docuseries: ‘Why Did You Adopt Me in the First Place?’
Natalia Grace Barnett didn’t hold back when confronting her adoptive father, Michael Barnett, during the filming of the new six-part Investigation Discovery docuseries, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks.
“Why are we here Michael?,” Natalia asked, as seen in a teaser clip released by People on Thursday, December 28.
When her adoptive father replied, “If you’re talking philosophically…,” the Ukraine native cut him off.
“No, I want to know — why did you adopt me in the first place?” Natalia, 33, asked him, pointedly.
Responding to his daughter’s direct line of questioning, which came during their first time speaking outside of a courtroom in years, Michael replied, “Many of these questions there’s not going to be a single answer to.”
Michael continued, claiming to be a victim of his “monster” ex-wife and Natalia’s adoptive mother, Kristine Barnett, in the same way his daughter was.
“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,” Michael told Natalia, referring to Kristine.
Michael and other people who knew Natalia previously told their side of the story in The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, which aired in May and did not include commentary from Natalia herself.
The Natalia Speaks installment of the docuseries offers ”Natalia’s perspective” and provides “insight into what really went on behind closed doors in the Barnetts’ home,” according to an ID press release. The show also explores “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.”
In the initial six-part series, which boasted episode titles ranging from “Nightmare Neighbor” to “Punch or Be Punched,” Michael described a nightmarish adoption experience with Natalia. Shortly after he and Kristine brought a 6-year-old Natalia home to Indiana from the Ukraine in 2010, she began to exhibit signs of being not only much older than her adoption papers claimed, but a “sociopath,” Michael alleged.
Michael detailed incidents during which Natalia allegedly tried to kill and injure her adoptive parents and siblings using everything from poisoned coffee, to thumb tacks, to an electric fence. Natalia, according to Michael’s claims, was using her rare form of dwarfism to pose as a child and infiltrate the Barnett family as a “con artist” with sinister intentions.
In 2012, the Barnett family had Natalia’s birth year legally changed from 1989 to 2003 — aging her by 14 years. After Natalia was declared a legal adult, the Barnetts rented her her own apartment in Lafayette, Indiana, and moved with their three sons to Canada.
Natalia’s neighbors soon expressed concern about Natalia’s wellbeing, and Michael and Kristine, who divorced in 2018, were charged with neglect of a dependent. Despite her legal age change, Natalia’s physical limitations due to her dwarfism caused her to be dependent on their care, according to prosecutors. In 2022, Michael was found not guilty of all three charges against him, and in May, the charges against Kristine were dropped.
The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks airs on ID across three consecutive nights beginning January 1 at 9 p.m. ET.
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