Where ‘The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter’ Leaves Natalia’s Story
The second half of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter delves into the “hell loop,” as legal expert Beth Karas describes it, that Natalia has repeatedly found herself in as tensions with the DePaul family, who helped her escape the home of her adoptive family, Bishop Antwon and Cynthia Mans, come to ahead.
Unlike the mistreatment Natalia experienced with her first adoptive family, Michael and Kristine Barnett, and allegedly the Manses as well, Vincent and Nicole DePaul have created a helpful environment for Natalia to thrive in since moving her from Nashville, Tennessee, to upstate New York to live with them. However, Natalia’s perceived allegiance to Antwon and Cynthia has left the DePauls frustrated as their efforts to help her lead an independent life as a young woman with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita are derailed when she continues to give the Manses access to money that she needs for health care, and publicly denies any accusations of physical or financial abuse while alluding to behavior to the contrary in private.
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Here are six revelations from parts three and four, which concluded The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter on Tuesday.
Natalia Says Abuse Allegations Are False
Episode three begins with the DePaul family reacting to Robert Madewell’s interview from episode two where he claimed that Antwon and Cynthia abused his son as well as Natalia. Though Natalia refuses to watch the footage, when Nicole asks her about the abuse allegations, she denies them outright and accuses Madewell of spreading false information. “It’s all a fucking lie,” Natalia says in the doc. “The guy with the little boy, he has a vendetta because we wouldn’t babysit for him anymore because he wouldn’t pay us.”
Initially, Natalia told producers she didn’t want to talk about the accusations of abuse when they inquired in episode two. When they later ask Natalia explicitly in episode three, “Were you ever hit?” she replies, “Not anything crazy, like maybe a pop on the butt or something.” According to Nicole, Natalia’s story changes depending on who’s around, saying that when it comes to the Manses, she speaks about them one way on camera and very differently behind the scenes. “Every now and then, she’ll drop little tidbits about the abuse that went on in the Manses’,” Nicole says. “Natalia has admitted to me firsthand that she has been whooped by both Cynthia and Antwon,” adding, “a whooping is like a beating.” Nicole’s daughter Mackenzie also backed up that claim, saying, “[Natalia] did mention whooping — scared-of-Antwon-type whooping. Hitting anybody with a disability is already messed up, let alone a child, let alone somebody with such severe dwarfism.”
As for the general accusations of abuse, Sarah R. Sommer, director of communications for the office of the mayor in Crawfordsville, Indiana, told THR in an email, “After speaking with our Chief of Police, I can confirm that there is currently no ongoing investigation involving Antwon and Cynthia Mans or their residence.”
Nicole Thinks Natalia is Being Blackmailed
To try to understand why Natalia is possibly protecting Antwon and Cynthia Mans, Nicole comes to the conclusion that her former adoptive family is blackmailing Natalia and that “it’s gotta be something sexual,” as she states on camera. Nicole then shares that she’s overheard Natalia having video/phone sex with her boyfriend Neil and that Natalia also told her she’d sexted a previous boyfriend in the past. This leads Nicole to believe this same behavior was likely going on in the Manses’ home and that given their strict religious beliefs, this partly incited the flustered phone call they made to producers declaring that something wasn’t right with Natalia. She also claims Natalia’s sister is in possession of the sexually explicit messages and/or images and is holding them over Natalia’s head along with the Manses.
Natalia never fully corroborates Nicole’s claims, but she does express concern about potential backlash to the interviews of people speaking ill of the Manses. “I feel like with those videos, they’re going to start a fucking war… My parents are gonna come out and say shit… and it hurts because I never thought in my entire life that they would probably do that to me, but I’m really, really certain that they would,” she says. “I’m worried about my relationship with Neil. I want to just live my life. I want to be with the person that I love, and I feel like they are really going to put some sh-\it out there.”
That fear appears to lead Natalia to make an arrangement with the Manses to pay her $25,000 of the money she’s earned over the years from public appearances and agree that she has no right to the Manses’ home or any income resulting from its potential sale in the future, even though it was purchased with Natalia’s money. Karas claims Natalia’s lifetime earnings are likely around the $200,000 mark, suggesting Natalia is receiving but a fraction of what would be owed to her and is being financially exploited by the Manses. Natalia also agrees to allow Cynthia to remain her supplemental security income (SSI) payee, telling her, “You’ve been my payee for over 11 years almost, so I trust you.” Antwon then jumps into the conversation to tell Natalia that she’s only questioning their guardianship now because of Neil. Cynthia states, “My request is we ain’t saying nothing about him. You make sure you don’t go in there and say nothing about us.”
Vincent Threatened to Leave His Family Over Natalia’s Issues With the Manses
Concerns over Natalia’s wellbeing lead Nicole to confront Antwon and Cynthia over the phone about what she perceives to be their mishandling not only of Natalia’s money but her overall welfare in discouraging her to have surgery and not seeing that she got proper medical care that could improve her quality of life. The blowup happens in Natalia’s presence and, overwhelmed by being stuck in the middle, she decides she wants to move back in with her adoptive parents. Yet after a phone call with Neil who dissuades her from doing so, she excitedly tells Nicole she’s decided to stay in her home.
Natalia’s wavering stance on the Manses begins affecting Nicole and her relationships with her husband and daughter. “I don’t want her to go back to the Manses because they’re abusive, but I also don’t want her to tear up my family,” Nicole states, acknowledging that she and Mackenzie have become more distant since Natalia moved in. Mackenzie admits to her mom that she often stays away from home on purpose, saying, “[Natalia] makes the environment kind of stressful and now it seems like there’s always some type of drama.” In a confessional, she later adds, “My mom prioritized saving Natalia over her marriage.” Nicole says that she and Vincent fight daily over how to handle Natalia and that after 23 years of marriage, he threatened to get a divorce. “He said, and he’s never said this to me before in our relationship, ‘I gotta tell you Nic, I’m thinking of leaving and never coming back because you didn’t listen to me when I said I didn’t really want this to happen,’ ” Nicole says through tears. “To add insult to injury [Natalia] turns on me and makes my household absolutely chaotic and it’s sad.”
At the beginning of episode four, Vince admits that he was ready to walk away because of the disruption Natalia has been to his once peaceful home. However, he states, “Ultimately, I decided to stay because I love my wife and I want to stand behind her.”
Natalia has Reactive Attachment Disorder
After the fallout between Nicole and the Manses, Natalia admits that she has harbored rage against Nicole, saying she feels she crossed a line getting in between her and her parents. She also confesses that she knows she needs therapy, however she’s not open to any mental health services, which the producers of the series made available to her. Nicole, on the other hand, pays a visit to her friend Melissa Misegadis, a rehabilitation psychologist, to discuss Natalia’s previous reactive attachment disorder (RAD) diagnosis and how to manage their relationship better. “Reactive attachment disorder is what happens when children don’t bond to their caregivers,” Misegadis explains. “Individuals with unaddressed trauma like Natalia has, these are behaviors that are coming from years of rejection and trauma.”
When asked by producers about her RAD diagnosis, Natalia, who was adopted from an orphanage in Ukraine, states, “I still don’t understand the full length of reactive attachment disorder, but I know one thing for me is I don’t like being left. I constantly feel like people are just going to walk out of my life.” Explaining that that belief has caused her to put up an emotional wall, she adds, “I personally can’t handle someone leaving me anymore. I can’t handle caring about somebody and then they walk away.”
The Manses Have Left Natalia With a Hefty Tax Bill
Despite the rifts getting involved in Natalia’s affairs have caused, Nicole continues to try to sort matters out between Natalia and the Manses, including a tax bill on $104,000 of income that Cynthia and Antwon have stuck Natalia with despite initially saying they would help her pay the taxes on the money Natalia never personally had access to.
“We told her we would go in on it because it was our money, but we never said we was paying that whole thing. That devil’s a liar,” Cynthia tells Nicole and Vincent when they call her about the 1099 form.
The Manses later double down on their stance and tell Natalia they won’t help her pay the tax bill at all, nor will they send her their bank statements demonstrating that Natalia’s SSI benefits were deposited into their personal accounts and not hers in order for her to remain eligible to receive benefits each month. Natalia then says Cynthia told her, “Maybe this is God’s way of saying you can move to the U.K.”
Natalia Appears on Track for a True Happy Ending This Time
The Manses’ response to Natalia’s plea for help in retaining her SSI benefits appears to be the incident that finally opens her eyes to their predatory behavior. In fact, after declaring she’s completely done with the Manses, she takes a hint from her adoptive mother and plans a successful trip to the U.K. to finally meet Neil in person. “I’m not really talking to my parents,” she says in an update five months after the tax debacle. “I’m living my life. They’re living theirs.”
Nicole and Vincent also retain a lawyer to help Natalia get her money back from the Manses and to protect her from any legal issues that might stem from how they’ve managed her finances over the years. Producer Shannon Evangelista also told THR in a previous interview that Natalia may be considering new steps to address her mental and physical health. “I don’t think there’s anyone that fully understands Natalia’s situation better than Nicole, who has the same exact rare form of dwarfism,” Evangelista said. “So, one of the things that Nicole feels very positive about is Natalia is starting to open up to different surgery options for herself. She feels like if Natalia can change her stance on that, she can change her stance on anything else.”
ID president Jason Sarlanis added to THR of how the series ends, “All I’ll say is I haven’t gotten a phone call, so I can promise you, thus far, it’s not like last time.”
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The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter is streaming on Max.
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