What follows are competing allegations of violence, abuse, deception, and abandonment.
As such, that makes the question of whetherGood American Familyis a true story complex to answer.
Read on as we work to unspool the strange saga of Natalia Grace.
Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia Grace in ‘Good American Family’.Credit:Disney/Ser Baffo
What isGood American Familyabout?
Who is Natalia Grace?
They believed Natalia to be 6 years old at the time of the adoption.
Imogen Faith Reid, Ellen Pompeo, and Mark Duplass in ‘Good American Family’.Disney/Ser Baffo
What do the Barnetts say happened with Natalia?
The couple also alleges that Natalia brought a knife into their bedroom as they slept.
The couple then relocated to Canada with their three sons.
Imogen Reid Faith plays Natalia Grace in ‘Good American Family’.Disney; Investigation Discovery
Natalia never saw Kristine again and only saw Michael once at a court hearing held years later."
Natalia has denied the allegations.
Do I look like I could even grip a knife?
Ellen Pompeo as Kristine and Mark Duplass as Michael in ‘Good American Family’.Disney
she said inan interview with PEOPLE this past January.
I really disliked being the girl who was re-aged and lived in her own apartment, she continued.
I didn’t understand why I was alone.
Mark Duplass as Michael and Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia in ‘Good American Family’.Disney/Ser Baffo
I just knew I had this instinct in me to push and survive.
All I was told was, You’re 22 now.
I was taught to lie."
Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia in ‘Good American Family’.Disney
What does Natalia say happened with the Barnetts?
As Natalia tells it, Kristine was the violent one in their relationship.
“This is so big.
Imogen Faith Reid in ‘Good American Family’.Disney/Ser Baffo
Because literally, this has been 13 years of just two people lying their butts off.
They ruined a kids life.
They painted [me] as some big monster.”
Ellen Pompeo as Kristine in ‘Good American Family’.Disney/Ser Baffo
She was not abused by anyone in my family.
Lets get straight to these allegations.
Nobody ever took a belt to Natalia and the allegations that she was ‘beaten’ are just plain false.
Dulé Hill, Imogen Faith Reid, Christina Hendricks, and Jerod Haynes in ‘Good American Family’.Disney
Any discipline of Natalia was very minimal and was not out of the bounds of normal parenting."
In the end I learned she is a sociopath."
Were the Barnetts charged with a crime?
Isabelle Fuhrman in ‘Orphan’.© Warner Bros.
Michael was acquitted of the charges in 2022, according to theAssociated Press.
Kristine’s charges were dismissed the following year, perWTHR.
Who are Antwon and Cynthia Mans?
Dule Hill in ‘Good American Family’.Disney/Ser Baffo
Not too long after, Natalia moved in with the couple and their 10 children.
In 2016, the Manses petitioned the courts to vacate the previous age-change order and gain guardianship of Natalia.
However, a required hearing to determine her age declared her to be an adult.
‘Good American Family’.Disney
Did Natalia Grace inspire the filmOrphan?
Natalia, after all, was adopted in 2010, a year after the film’s release.
So no, Natalia did not inspireOrphan.
She does, however, think the film may have inspired the Barnetts.
“It was all copied off the movieOrphan,“Natalia says in the docuseries.
“Ukrainian girl, Russian girl, check.
All this crazy stuff.
Standing at the end of the bed with a knife.
Who’s in theGood American Familycast?
Where can I watchGood American Family?
The first two episodes ofGood American Familyare nowstreaming on Hulu.
New episodes drop every Wednesday until the finale on April 20.
