Image Credit: FilmMagic
Orphan, the psychological horror film about a couple who adopt a psychopathic nine-year-old girl, drew new attention after the story of Natalia Grace, whose story made headlines in 2023 and was featured in the Investigation Discovery docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace. The case raised shocking similarities between the film and her real-life experiences.
Find out more about the film and its possible connection to Natalia Grace.
When Did Orphan Come Out?
Orphan was released in 2009.
Who Is Natalia Grace?
Grace was born in Ukraine to a 24-year-old mother who gave her up for adoption due to her dwarfism. After spending time in an orphanage and unstable homes, she was brought to the U.S. through international adoption by New Hampshire couple Dyan and Gary Ciccone in 2008, according to court documents and PEOPLE. However, they later gave her up, and in 2010, she was adopted by the Barnetts, an Indiana couple with three sons.
Grace was six when she was adopted by Kristine and Michael Barnett. However, the Barnetts grew suspicious of her age when they claimed to have discovered that she had pubic hair, was menstruating, and had developed many adult teeth. In 2012, they petitioned the Marion County probate court to legally change Grace’s birth year from 2003 to 1989. This process, known as “re-aging,” effectively transformed their 8-year-old daughter into a 22-year-old adult overnight.
Was Orphan Based on Natalia Grace’s Story?
The movie Orphan was released before Grace was adopted by the Barnetts, so it couldn’t have been based on her story. However, Grace has mentioned in Natalia Speaks that she believes the Barnetts’ allegations about her were directly inspired by the movie Orphan.
“The things that Kristine and Michael have said that I’ve done is a lie. It was all copied off the movie ‘Orphan,’” Grace says in the documentary series. “Ukrainian girl, Russian girl, check. Orphan, check. All this crazy stuff. Standing at the end of the bed with a knife, check.”
The movie Orphan is said to be inspired by the story of Barbora Škrlová, a Czech woman in her 30s who posed as a 13-year-old in Norway. Škrlová, who had hypopituitarism — a rare condition affecting hormone production in the pituitary gland — was adopted by Klara Mauerova, a woman later accused of abusing her biological sons while Škrlová was in her care. In an attempt to evade Czech authorities and avoid testifying in Mauerova’s child-abuse case, Škrlová, then 33 years old, escaped to Norway, where she posed as a 13-year-old boy named Adam.
She was eventually captured by authorities in 2008, and her case gained attention in the Czech Republic in mid-2007.
