44. Art, Lies, and Painting Toddlers

Prodigy or Performance? The Marla Olmstead Scandal

In the early 2000s, a four-year-old girl named Marla Olmstead became an overnight sensation — hailed as an abstract art prodigy whose paintings sold for thousands. But was she really the one holding the brush?

This week on Framed, Steph and Joel unpack the wild true story of Marla’s rise to fame, the media storm that followed, and the lingering question: what happens when we want to believe a child is a genius... even if they’re not?

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