Gone too far? Richard Gadd might have responded to Fiona Harvey’s interview. The comedian and creator of Baby Reindeer is shocked by the sheer outcome and frenzy over the Netflix series.
Gadd talked to Daily Record newspaper and revealed that he was shocked that he made “a little cult artistic gem” that people were outside his house.
“It was, like, crazy. I never expected it to sort of blow up like this,” Gadd said. “I believed it would be successful but I didn’t expect overnight, I don’t even like to use this word, fame.”
He continued, “I really believed in this show but it really felt like one day it went on the platform and the next day there were people camping in my garden.”
Richard Gadd conceptualized Baby Reindeer after a woman sent him 41,071 emails, 350 hours’ worth of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, 106 pages of letters, and a variety of weird gifts, including a reindeer toy, sleeping pills, a woolly hat and boxer shorts over the course of four years. It began as a one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe and it got picked up by Netflix began and Gadd as a fictionalized version of himself named Donny Dunn. The show explores his traumas and how the situation affected his career and personal life.
Who is the real-life Martha in Baby Reindeer?
While Gadd never named the people his characters are based on, it didn’t take long for the online community to identify Fiona Harvey as the “Real Martha”, despite Gadd telling GQ that “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.”
Speaking with controversial TV host Piers Morgan, the alleged real-life Martha, a woman named Fiona Harvey refuted much of what was depicted in Baby Reindeer. “They have billed it as a true story, and so has he, and it’s not,” she said. “He is lying and they are lying.” When it came to her being arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime, she said, “That is completely untrue, very, very defamatory to me, very career damaging.”
The interview with Piers Morgan has received a strong reaction from the public, with many in the comments section doubting the legitimacy of her story. Others were disturbed by “Piers Morgan conducting one of the most unethical interviews ever.” The video has been viewed 4.5M times in 17 hours.
Gadd purposefully didn’t disclose the identity of the real Martha. “We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognize herself,” he explained to GQ. “What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone.”
