Natalia Grace said on the "Dr. Phil" show that she is a 16-year-old girl, not a violent grown woman.
Ukranian orphan Natalia Grace Barnett , whose former adoptive parents say is a grown woman posing as a child, is now defending herself in public, telling Dr. Phil the allegations are false.
Natalia was adopted in 2000 by an Indiana couple who say they were told she was 6 years old. But the couple claimed earlier this year that she is really a 30-year-old woman and a "sociopath" who threatened to kill them.
Speaking publicly for the first time, a teary Barnett told syndicated talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw in an interview that aired Thursday that those accusations aren't "true at all."
Appearing with Antwon and Cynthia Mans, with whom she is now living, Barnett said her former adoptive parents are mistaken.
"They claim that they did bone scans and all that. I don't remember going through a bone scan," she said. Barnett, who has a form of dwarfism, says she is actually 16. So do the Mans.
"She looks like a child. She acts like a child," said Cynthia.
In 2013, Michael and Kristine Barnett left the girl in Indiana, saying she was an adult and could take care of herself, and moved with their biological children to Canada. Both parents have been charged with felony neglect of a dependent. Each has pleaded not guilty.
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