Richard Gadd responds to ‘Baby Reindeer’ lawsuit

In a dramatic twist worthy of its own script, Richard Gadd, the creator and star of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, has opened up about the “exhausting and extremely upsetting” stalking he allegedly endured from Fiona Harvey, who is now suing the streaming giant over her portrayal in the series.

According to Guardian, in a 21-page document filed in a California court on Monday, Gadd detailed years of “stalking, harassment, abuse, and threats” by Harvey between 2014 and 2017. Harvey has hit back with a $170 million lawsuit against Netflix, claiming defamation, emotional distress, negligence, and violations of her right of publicity.

Netflix has billed Baby Reindeer as “a true story,” though Harvey is never named in the series. She has publicly identified herself as the inspiration for the character Martha Scott, who stalks Gadd’s character in the show. Harvey denies being a stalker or sending Gadd 41,000 emails, hundreds of voicemails, and 106 letters, stating she only sent “a few emails, one letter by post, and about 18 messages on X.”

Gadd’s court filing paints a different picture. “The series is a dramatic work,” he wrote. “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 true, it is not a beat-by-beat recounting of the events and emotions I experienced as they transpired. It is fictionalised and is not intended to portray actual facts.”

The show is based on a theatre production Gadd performed at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. “Although these stage productions were emotionally true and based on real events in my life, they dramatised people, places, things, and events to tell a story,” Gadd wrote. “I did not write the Series as a representation of actual facts about any real person, including Fiona Harvey ... Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.”

Gadd described meeting Harvey at the Hawley Arms pub in London in 2014 and initially thought she was “harmless.” But soon, he alleged, she “often attempted to touch me in inappropriate (and sometimes sexual) ways” and ignored his requests to stop.

After two years of harassment, during which he claims he received “thousands of emails, hundreds of voicemails, and a number of handwritten letters,” which were often “sexually explicit, violent” with “derogatory content, hateful speech, and threats,” Gadd reported Harvey to the police in February 2016. “The cumulative effect of all of Harvey’s actions was enormous,” he wrote.

Harvey is seeking $50 million for actual damages, $50 million in compensatory damages for “mental anguish, loss of enjoyment and loss of business,” $50 million for “all profits from Baby Reindeer” and $20 million for punitive damages.