- Netflix's “Baby Reindeer” tells the story of a male comedian who is stalked by an older woman.
- The show's screenwriter, Richard Gadd, based his writing on his own experiences with stalking.
- A woman has come forward who believes the Stalker character is based on her.
A woman who believes the stalker character in Netflix's latest hit series “Baby Reindeer” is based on her has said she is considering taking legal action against the show.
The woman, who was interviewed by the Daily Mail without giving her name, said she was considering taking the show's creator Richard Gadd, Netflix and others to court for defamation.
The series, produced, written and starring Gadd, is based on the Scottish comedian's one-man stage show of the same name and was inspired by his four-year experience with being stalked.
In the show, Gad plays a fictional version of himself who begins to be stalked by an older woman named Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning) after striking up a conversation at the pub where he works.
The series has been widely praised for its compassionate portrayal of stalking from both the victim's and stalker's sides, with the stalker in this case shown to be suffering from untreated mental health issues. It has been.
But the hit show follows social media sleuths on a mission to expose Gad's real stalker, an older male comedy writer (played by Tom Goodman-Hill) who sexually abused him. It stimulated me.
Gad himself has urged audiences to stop playing detective in order to find out who the character is based on, but now a woman who has been accused on social media of being the real-life Martha has spoken out. . She claims she has received “death threats and abuse from supporters of Richard Gadd”.
She told the Mail that she felt Gad was “bullying older women on TV for fame and fortune”, noting that viewers of the show were following her and trying to hide Gad's true identity. He criticized the creator's attempts to do so.
“He's now using 'baby reindeer' to stalk me,” said the anonymous woman. “I'm the victim. He wrote a bloody show about me.”
She also disputed elements of the seven-part drama, saying: “I've never owned a baby reindeer toy and I had no intention of having a conversation with Richard Gadd about my childhood toys.” Ta.
The woman denies being a stalker and told the Mail that the award-winning comedian suffers from “protagonist syndrome.”
After its release in mid-April, “Baby Reindeer” became a surprise hit for Netflix, climbing to No. 1 on the streamer's charts in more than 30 countries. According to Deadline, the limited series has been viewed more than 13 million times since its release.
Although the series is advertised as being based on a true story, Gadd said that he utilized artistic license in creating the characters.
About the character of Martha, he told GQ: “We went to great lengths to hide her so much that we couldn't recognize her as herself. What she borrowed was an emotional truth, not a factual one. ”A factual profile of someone. ”
He also told Variety that he wasn't worried about real stalkers trying to contact him because of the show's popularity “because of how it ended up in real life.”
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, is a member of Netflix's board of directors.