A woman who claims she is the real-life inspiration for Richard Gadd’s hit Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, is slamming the creator for what she calls an inaccurate portrayal of their relationship.
While speaking with the Daily Mail Online, the woman — who is not named in the article in order to protect her privacy — says she is considering taking legal action against the 34-year-old Scottish comedian who penned the series based on his own experience with a stalker. The unidentified 58-year-old says she is shocked and disgusted by Gadd using the story to make a name for himself and claims she is the victim in the situation.
“He’s using Baby Reindeer to stalk me now,” she shares. “I’m the victim. He’s written a bloody show about me.”
While she is not identified by name, the outlet reports that the woman in question shares several “key similarities” with Gadd’s stalker in the series — named “Martha.” Among the most telling clues are her Scottish upbringing, her 20-plus-year age gap with Gadd and her “highly sexualized” language both in writing and speech. She also bears an “uncanny physical resemblance” to Martha, the outlet reports.
In an April profile with GQ, Gadd spoke about the possibility that his real-life stalker may end up watching his show and was asked what he thinks she would make of the series. At the time, he said that while he was unsure of how the real “Martha” would react, in a perfect world, she wouldn’t even know the show was about her.
“We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognize herself. What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone,” he said.
In spite of the actions taken to protect her identity, the real woman interviewed by the British outlet says that her resemblance to the character alone was enough for the show’s fans to draw a connection, saying the actress, Jessica Gunning, “sort of looks like me.”
While the show had a decent and respectable debut on the streaming platform, word of mouth quickly spread and skyrocketed the series’ popularity, taking it to the No. 1 spot on the Netflix charts globally. In the three weeks since it premiered, Baby Reindeer has been viewed by 13.3 million platform users with more than 52 million hours streamed, Netflix says.
That rise in popularity has also come with a sizable new following for Gadd, whose now die-hard fans have gone out of their way to try and identify both the real-life Martha and the mentor — named Darrien in the series — who groomed and raped him. While the internet sleuths have done everything in their power to track down the corresponding offenders, Gadd himself has asked fans to not fall down any rabbit holes trying to get to the bottom of the case.
“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, per Today. “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.”
To the Scottish comedian and Olivier Award winner, the point of the show was to bring awareness to stalking and to paint the topic in a less glamorous and seductive way than the media typically handles it. In one interview with The Independent, he even called her a “victim” of circumstance and a product of a failed system.
“I can’t emphasize enough how much of a victim she is in all this,” he said at the time. “Stalking and harassment is a form of mental illness. It would have been wrong to paint her as a monster, because she’s unwell, and the system’s failed her.”
For the alleged real-life Martha, however, Baby Reindeer amounts to no more than “bullying an older woman on television for fame and fortune.” She adds that she also received “death threats and abuse from Richard Gadd supporters” in spite of his pleas.
Furthermore, she alleges that the accuracy of the show is a topic that should be in question as she refutes several key details of their relationship — including the basis for the show’s name. Baby Reindeer, according to Gadd, comes from the sobriquet used by his stalkers in person and in online interactions over the course of six years worth of stalking.
During that time, Gadd says Martha sent 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages worth of letters. In the series finale, Gadd — via an email from his stalker — explains that Martha gave him the nickname because he reminded her of a stuffed animal she had as a child, one with “big lips, huge eyes and the cutest wee bum.”
“I’ve never owned a toy baby reindeer and I wouldn’t have had any conversation with Richard Gadd about a childhood toy either,” the woman said of the show’s name.
She also disputes some of the factual details surrounding some of their earliest interactions, including the show’s tackling of an instance in which Gadd said he would hang Martha’s curtains — a euphemism for sex. The show addresses it as a joke Gadd told her in order to get out of an awkward encounter where his friends were present.
All in all, she says Gadd did not do enough to protect her identity and asks that he stop profiting off the story. She slams the Scottish comedian and says that he needs to leave her out of the narrative moving forward.
“Richard Gadd has got ‘main character syndrome,” she says. “He always thinks he’s at the center of things. I’m not writing shows about him or promoting them in the media, am I? If he wanted me to be properly anonymous, he could have done so. Gadd should leave me alone.”
Gadd has yet to respond to the report.
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