THE REAL NATALIA GRACE

HER DOCUSERIES THE CURIOUS CASE OF NATALIA GRACE INTRODUCED THE WORLD TO THE UKRAINIAN ORPHAN ACCUSED OF LYING ABOUT HER AGE. NOW, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, SHE WANTS TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

- DANIELLE BACHER

Natalia Grace Mans has an admission to make: Although she's known to the world as the enigmatic central figure of the docuseries The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, she sometimes has a strong aversion to appearing on-camera. As a TV crew prepares to record footage at a warehouse studio in New York City, the 21-year-old slumps in a chair, her face registering emotions that rapidly shift from anxiousness to raw fear and ultimately panic. But after shouting in a trembling voice, "Everyone get out," and briefly locking herself in a bathroom, she emerges calm, even cheerful, and ready to explain herself.

"I have anxiety all the way to the roof," says Natalia. She can be triggered by traumatic memories of events that viewers of the show remember only too well, including the allegations that she was an adult with dwarfism pretending to be a child and threatened an adoptive family with a knife, and that another family she lived with subjected her to physical and psychological abuse. "It's definitely hard to deal with," she says. "I'm the type of person that hides it until I get too overwhelmed, and it explodes."

Then she adds, "I actually don't like being filmed or being on a TV show. I'm more of a quiet girl who enjoys sitting on a porch swing with a book and a hot chocolate or coffee in the morning." Yet as viewers will see on The Curious Case of Natalia Grace: The Final Chapter, premiering Jan. 6 and 7 on Investigation Discovery, the serious challenges of Natalia's life kept coming, including being controlled by another set of parents, for more than a decade. In her first interview since the show debuted, Natalia says she wants to tell her side of the story about life with a series of parents and legal guardians, including an adoptive mother who called her a violent "sociopath." "There were a lot of people saying, 'You're fake. You're a liar.