‘Baby Reindeer’ Stars Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning Discuss Series’ Real-Life Inspiration Amid Lawsuit

The success of Richard Gadd‘s hit Netflix series, Baby Reindeer, was a shock even to the creator and star himself! During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the 35-year-old comedian admitted he hadn’t expected the show to become the phenomenon it has. 

Gadd, who appeared alongside his co-star, Jessica Gunning, explained that Baby Reindeer originated as a stage play based on his experiences getting stalked and harassed by “Martha Scott,” who sent him 41,071 emails, 744 tweets and 350 hours worth of voicemails over the course of six years. He first performed it at Edinburgh Fringe in 2019, after which Netflix approached him to create a series based on his real-life experience.

“I said, ‘Yeah, go on then,'” Gadd quipped, although he admitted that he had “some belief” that the concept could work as a series when he was writing the play. “I did have this secret belief or hope that it might actually be one. I don’t know; as I was writing it as a play, I thought, ‘You know what? I think this could have a further life beyond this play.’ And I guess it did.”

Gunning said that she’d seen Gadd perform his show, Monkey See, Monkey Do, which an episode of the series is based on, and became a passionate fan. So much so that when she could see Baby Reindeer, she bought the play text to read it on her own. 

“So when the e-mail came through that said, you know, I was auditioning, I was like, ‘Oh my god,'” she admitted.

Since Baby Reindeer hit the streaming platform on April 11, word of mouth has spread like wildfire to make the show No. 1 on Netflix’s charts and to shine a major spotlight on Gadd.

“I remember when the show went out, it was like this big deal for me, because I was a comedian playing to five people in the back end of pubs as of a couple of months ago, you know?

“It went out at like 8 a.m. in the UK on April 11. I thought, ‘Maybe my mum [Julia] and dad [Geoff] will watch it this weekend or something,'” Gadd told Fallon. “It literally felt like overnight, it just exploded, my phone was going off, my door bell was ringing — everyone just seemed to be discussing it. Then I kept having these points where I thought, ‘This is as as big as it gets.'”

Gadd continued, “And it’s crazy… It’s just had this, like, sort of almost cross-cultural success that I never expected because it’s so singular and it’s so idiosyncratic and it’s very London and it’s such an odd story and, like, a weird, traumatic story. But I guess a lot of people are suffering right now.”

But with the critical acclaim comes a mountain of controversy. 

Gadd has been candid about how 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 pulled straight from his own experience and “emotionally 100 percent true,” he told Variety. For obvious legal reasons, however, many details have been adjusted. Some who watch the show may be surprised to find out that some details — namely the scale of the stalking — have been toned down. 

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 dealt with, only that he has “mixed feelings” about how the situation was resolved, he once told The Independent. 

“I can’t emphasize enough how much of a victim she is in all this,” he said. “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.”

Despite Gadd’s efforts to keep Baby Reindeer fans from falling down a rabbit hole and speculating about the identities of his rapist and stalker, a woman named Fiona Harvey has since come forward, claiming that the character of Martha is based off of her. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Harvey denied many plot points of Baby Reindeer and said that she plans to sue both Gadd and Netflix for the character’s portrayal on the show. 

Baby Reindeer star Nava Mau revealed that the cast, including Gadd, decided not to watch Harvey’s interview.

Talking with ET from 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 “tell-all” interview, the Baby Reindeer team opted to steer clear of the drama.

“Yeah, we decided not to watch it, so we didn’t,” Mau told ET. 

True to her word, on June 6, 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.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and alleges Netflix told “brutal lies” about her in the Baby Reindeer series.

“The lies that Defendants told about Harvey to over 50 million people worldwide include that Harvey is a twice-convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison, and that Harvey sexually assaulted Gadd,” her complaint states. “Defendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money.”

The lawsuit continues, “As a result of Defendants’ lies, malfeasance and utterly reckless misconduct, Harvey’s life had been ruined. Simply, Netflix and Gadd destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.”

Baby Reindeer begins by claiming it’s a “true story.” But Harvey’s lawsuit alleges that Netflix “did literally nothing to confirm the ‘true story’ that Gadd told.”

“It never investigated whether Harvey was convicted, a very serious misrepresentation of the facts,” the complaint continued. “It did nothing to understand the relationship between Gadd and Harvey, if any. It did nothing to determine whether other facts, including an assault, the alleged stalking or the conviction was accurate.”

A spokesperson for Netflix told ET in a statement on Thursday, “We intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”

For more on Baby Reindeer, check out the links below.

RELATED CONTENT: