Orphan Natalia Grace Confronts Adoptive Dad Over Mom's Alleged Abuse & Attempts to Hook Her Up with Adult Men

Grace first made headlines after the family who adopted her changed her birthdate to make her substantially older, before placing her in her own apartment. Parents Michael and Kristine Barnett -- who didn't believe Natalia was actually a child and was instead a woman in her 20s out to kill them and their children -- were later arrested for neglect, but cleared of the charges.

Coming face to face with Michael for the first time outside of court on the new ID docuseries "The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks," Grace asked him about his wife's alleged abuse, as well as why he didn't do more to help her or leave Kristine.

"I want to know why did you adopt me in the first place? Why?!" Natalia asked first, with Michael saying that, "for many of these questions, there's not going to be a single answer." He went on to tell her that they both shared "the same monster" in Kristine, as they were both "incredible victims of an otherworldly type of abuse."

When she pushed back, asking why he felt he was a "victim" too, he told her there was so much "stuff you don't know" -- claiming he was "exceptionally controlled, put down, threatened, minimized" and "instructed to be exactly what she wanted me to be" by Kristine. He claimed she threatened to take their sons away from him if he didn't comply and said he tried to leave her at least ten times.

She then asked why he married her in the first place, with Michael saying that was "a hell of a question." At that point, Natalia's other adoptive father, a bishop, interrupted and asked him not to curse -- sparking an argument between him and Michael's lawyer. With that, Michael threw a fit, exclaiming how he "TRIED to get rid of that mouth," before screaming wildly and walking out of the house shouting, "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!"

"If there was a God, he would let me die! He would have let me die," he exclaimed, before getting into his car and driving off.

It was all very bizarre, but Michael would reach out to Natalia again and ask to sit down and speak again. She agreed, first asking why he never left Kristine.

"After 15+ years of being put down and degraded and controlled and threatened, I didn't have any strength at all to stand up to her. I wish I did. I didn't," he said, adding that he doesn't even refer to Kristine by her name anymore, instead calling her "Evil" or the "Wicked Witch of the South."

When Natalia asked whether Michael knew what Kristine allegedly did to her, he said he knew "some things" and had only "just learned" other claims -- saying he was "afraid of what I don't know" and not really getting into specifics. His lawyer defended his generic answers, saying he his client wasn't being "evasive" but "suffers from PTSD as a result of this marriage."

He went on to say that there was "not a lot of conversation" about dropping her off at her own apartment when she was allegedly just a child, because "there was a lot of dictating." Michael also refused to answer questions about having Natalia's age changed, yelling at producers after she asked about it that they had agreed it was off-limits before sitting down. "I want to stay away from things that might be too emotionally touchy, that's all," he added, after getting huffy about the question even being asked.

Michael was also asked why the family just didn't put Natalia back up for adoption when they realized it wasn't working out. He claimed he did have that conversation with Kristine, suggesting they "just walk away from this" and was met with a "very, very, very, very stern no." Theorizing why his wife allegedly didn't want to give up Natalia, he said he believes she wanted the adoration and attention that came with taking in someone with special needs.

"It's vaguely possible she saw the adoption as an 'Aren't I a great person, everyone? Look at me, I'm so wonderful, I'm so charitable,'" he said, choosing his words carefully. "She compared herself to Oprah regularly," he added, saying it's possible she didn't want to have to tell anyone why the adoption didn't work out.

"Do you remember putting a lock on my door?" Natalia then asked, as Michael said he was told to do that by doctors.

She wanted to know if he "realized Kristine was hitting me" with a belt and "letting the boys hit me" and allowed their son Jacob to "drop me" at the time. He was adamant he didn't and broke into tears saying his son was "so, so sorry" for what he was "being forced to do" by his mother -- before Natalia, in a confessional, called out how Michael was "pretty much blaming everything on Kristine," despite her feeling he was still at least partially responsible for what she allegedly went through.

"How did you feel when Kristine was beating me?" she then asked, as Michael reiterated how Kristine allegedly used their sons as a threat. He said he tried recorded some of the alleged abuse at one point -- hoping she would watch it, see how she looked and stop -- but claimed Kristine also forced him to reset his phone and delete everything on it.

Natalia continued to tell Michael about more of the alleged abuse, claiming Kristine made her put on a pink dress and pointed hat and "stand like a gnome" in the front yard and exposing her to "Sexual stuff" by placing her in an apartment alone at such a young age. She also claimed Kristine put makeup on her and cut her hair in an attempt to "make me look like an adult" -- adding that her adoptive mother the took photos of her all done up before "sending them to a guy, trying to get me put on a date."

"Kristine tried to set me up with a guy when I was 7-years-old. With a grown man. What if the guy raped me? He could have did anything, he could have kidnapped me, he could have murdered me," she added, as Michael said he only found out about that claim "three or four weeks ago," likely after it aired as part of the other Natalia Grace special earlier this year.

TooFab has only seen five of the six episodes of the docuseries, though the conversation between Natalia and Michael will continue in Part 6.

The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: Natalia Speaks will premiere across three consecutive nights on ID beginning Monday, January 1, airing nightly from 9-11PM ET/PT. See more coverage below!