If you’ve heard the words “Baby Reindeer” on repeat over the past few weeks, you’re certainly not alone, as the title of Netflix’s newest hit series seems to be everywhere at the moment.
Since Baby Reindeer When The Walking Dead hit the streaming platform on April 11, word of mouth spread like wildfire to make the show No. 1 on Netflix’s charts and shine a major spotlight on the show’s writer and creator, Richard Gadd. The Scottish comedian and actor, 34, also stars in the limited series that follows the shocking but true story of his own experience with a stalker, “Martha Scott,” who sent him 41,071 emails, 744 tweets and 350 hours of voicemails over the course of six years.
A curious name for a show. Viewers don’t have to wait long into the first episode to discover why Gadd chose to call the series — and the original one-man West End play on which it is based — Baby Reindeer. The program’s name derives from the nickname Gadd’s stalker used to refer to him before the police officially intervened.
Baby Reindeer begins with Donny Dunn (Gadd) helping out a complete stranger, Martha (Jessica Gunning), by offering her a cup of tea on the house inside the pub where he works. The simple act of kindness quickly turns into something he would regret, as Martha — whose name and other details have been changed in the series to protect her identity — becomes attached to him and begins a parasitic relationship. She begins visiting him every day at work, texting him nonstop, and even harassing other people in his life, including his parents, girlfriend, and coworkers.
While many watched the series in shock and horror at the entire ordeal — including the fact that investigators refused to intervene until Martha, a serial stalker, began contacting and threatening her family and loved ones — others were left wondering how much of the series is real.
According to Gadd, much of the show — including his painful recollection of drug addiction and sexual abuse at the hands of a mentor in the writing space — is drawn directly from his own experience and “emotionally 100 percent true,” he said. Variety. For obvious legal reasons, however, many details have been tweaked. Some who watch the show may be surprised to find that some details — most notably the scale of the persecution — have been toned down.
Forbes reports that in the play — which premiered at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival before winning an Olivier in the West End — Gadd reveals that, in addition to the personal harassment, Martha sent 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters.
In the show, Martha sends Donny up to 80 emails a day, sits at a bus stop near his home, assaults both his ex-girlfriend and his current love interest, and follows him to standup show after standup show where he—an aspiring comedian—is met with boos from her in the audience. At one point, the woman even tries to turn the crowd at a festival against him by mocking his jokes and making damning accusations.
While the show ends with Martha sentenced to nine months in prison, Gadd has been incredibly tight-lipped about how his real-life stalker was treated, only that he has “mixed feelings” about how the situation was resolved, he once said. The Independent.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much of a victim she is in all of this,” he said. “Stalking and harassment are a form of mental illness. It would have been wrong to paint her as a monster because she is not well, and the system has failed her.”
At the time of the play’s sold-out release, he made similar comments to The Guardian in which he also spoke about his own role in the situation and how he does not believe he is innocent.
“It would be unfair to say she was a horrible person and I was a victim. That didn’t ring true,” the writer said in 2019. “I did a lot of bad things and made things worse. I wasn’t a perfect person (back then), so there’s no point in saying I was.”
The comments echo throughout the show, where Gadd’s character expresses his complicated views on his role in Martha’s attachment and how his own sexual abuse at the hands of Darrien O’Connor (Tom Goodman-Hill), an older comedian who groomed and then abused him. Gadd believes his horrific history of sexual violence at the hands of someone he trusted made him a “glue” for someone like Martha to come along and attach herself to.
While Gadd hasn’t been shy about laying it all on the line, one thing he’s not here for is anyone trying to expose or uncover the identity of their real-life stalker or abuser. Baby ReindeerThe actor is keen to touch on Martha’s own traumatic experiences that shaped her into the person she’s become. In the weeks since the show’s release, he’s urged his recent flood of new fans and followers to avoid going down a rabbit hole and speculating about the identities of her rapist and stalker.
“Hi everyone, People I love, have worked with and admire (including Sean Foley) are unfairly getting caught up in speculation,” he wrote in an Instagram story, Today. “Please do not speculate about who any of the real-life people might be. That is not the purpose of our show.”
Despite these efforts, a woman named Fiona Harvey has come forward, claiming that the character Martha is based on her. an interview with Piers MorganHarvey denied many plot points in Baby Reindeer and said he plans to sue Gadd and Netflix over the character’s portrayal in the series.
“I think it’s quite obscene. I think it’s horrible, misogynistic,” she said, claiming that “some of the death threats have been really awful online. People (are) calling me. It’s been absolutely horrendous. I wouldn’t give credence to something like that, and it’s not really my kind of drama.”
Upon finding out about the Netflix series, Harvey said he felt “absolutely horrible,” noting, “I couldn’t believe this had happened.”
“I’m not a stalker,” she said. “I didn’t go to jail… It’s completely absurd.”
As for why she believes Gadd did the show, Harvey said she thinks he “has extreme psychiatric issues” and had financial motives.
“He failed as a comedian, he failed as an actor, so let’s make some money, sell this to Netflix,” she said. “… I would defy you to leave me alone… Get a life. Get a real job. I’m horrified by what you’ve done.”
Baby Reindeer Star Nava Mau revealed that the cast, including Gadd, decided not to watch Harvey’s interview.
Talking to ET at the 2024 Gotham TV Awards in New York City on June 4, the 32-year-old actress said that when Harvey sat down with Morgan for a supposed “revealing” interview, Baby Reindeer the team chose to stay away from the drama.
“Yeah, we decided not to watch it, so we didn’t watch it,” Mau told ET. The Mexican actress didn’t elaborate on her reasoning, but it’s clear that, as Harvey recently threatened legal actionperhaps it is best to leave this to superiors and lawyers.
In late May, Harvey — through senior attorney Chris Daw — told ET that he plans to sue “all those who lied about me and used my image to make large sums of money for themselves.”
On June 6th, Harvey sued Netflix — but did not name Gadd as a defendant — and alleged defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and violations of her right of publicity. She is demanding at least $170 million in damages, according to court documents sent to ET.
O lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and alleges that Netflix told “brutal lies” about her in the Baby Reindeer Series.
“The lies Defendants told about Harvey to more than 50 million people around the world include that Harvey is a twice-convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison, and that Harvey sexually assaulted Gadd,” their complaint states. “Defendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories make money.”
The lawsuit continues, “As a result of Defendants’ lies, misconduct, and completely reckless conduct, Harvey’s life has been ruined. Quite simply, Netflix and Gadd have destroyed his reputation, his character, and his life.”
Baby Reindeer begins by claiming it is a “true story.” But Harvey’s lawsuit claims that Netflix “did literally nothing to confirm the ‘true story’ Gadd told.”
“He never investigated whether Harvey was convicted, a very serious misrepresentation of the facts,” the complaint continued. “He did nothing to understand the relationship between Gadd and Harvey, if any. He did nothing to determine whether other facts, including an assault, alleged stalking, or conviction, were accurate.”
On July 29, Gadd responded to Harvey’s lawsuit and reiterated again that the show is “emotionally truthful” about his life, but is also not intended to be “a detailed account” of events. according to court documents.
In her response in support of Netflix, Gadd explicitly wrote: “Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.”
He added: “The series is a dramatic work. It is not a documentary or an attempt at realism. While the series is based on my life and real-life events and is, at its core, emotionally truthful, it is not a blow-by-blow account of the events and emotions I experienced as they unfolded. It is fictional and does not purport to portray actual facts.”
Gadd also wrote in his court papers: “Throughout the process of drafting the Baby Reindeer “In the play and the series, I intentionally did not refer to Harvey by name in any way. When viewers began to speculate about real-life inspirations for various characters, I encouraged them to stop… I never intended for the series to identify any real person as Martha Scott, including Harvey.”
ET has reached out to Netflix for comment.
Gadd said earlier Netflix’s TUDUM that part of his goal in adapting his story into a play and, later, a mass-market TV show was to subvert expectations surrounding the concept of stalking. Rather than playing into the often miscalculated and inaccurate way that TV shows and movies portray the topic, he wanted to show it for what it is — a mental illness.
“Stalking on television tends to be very sexualized. It has a mystique to it. It’s someone in a dark alley. It’s someone who’s really sexy, who’s very normal, but then it slowly gets weird,” Gadd explained.
He added: “But stalking is a mental illness. I really wanted to show the layers of stalking with a human quality that I hadn’t seen on television before. It’s a stalker story turned on its head. It takes a trope and turns it on its head.”
Watch the trailer for Baby Reindeer in the player below:
All seven episodes of Baby Reindeer are now available on Netflix.
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