“This is a true story.”
This is what is displayed on a black screen at the beginning of the hit Netflix series Baby reindeer. It is also the opening of a defamation claim against the streamer, claiming that the five-word phrase is “the biggest lie in the history of television”.
Baby reindeerwhich debuted on Netflix on April 11, is based on the experiences of Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, portraying a character called Donny – played by Gadd, who wrote the show and the individual stage production, is adapted from— being pursued by an older Scottish woman named Martha, played by Jessica Gunning.
Within days Baby reindeer When broadcast, online detectives identified the so-called “real Martha” as 58-year-old Scottish woman Fiona Harvey. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Harvey is demanding a jury trial and seeking at least $170 million in damages from Netflix for alleged defamation, intentional imposition of emotional distress, negligence and violations of your right to publicity (unauthorized use of your identity and image).
Because she is linked to the show, Harvey claims that her “life has been ruined” and that Netflix “destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.”
The character Martha is portrayed as a twice-convicted stalker who physically and sexually assaulted Gadd’s character, reportedly stalked a police officer, camped outside Gadd’s character’s home for up to 16 hours a day, and spent more than five years in prison for several sentences – things that Harvey says are untrue about herself.
See more information: The True Story Behind Netflix’s Surprise Hit ‘Baby Reindeer’
“The real Martha is reasonably understood by all viewers to have done all these monstrous things because Netflix and Gadd asserted that this was true,” the complaint says. “The defendants told these lies and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money.”
Harvey alleges that Netflix “intended to inflict harm” on her and did “literally nothing” to confirm the details of her “true story”, which ended up becoming a huge hit watched by more than 65 million people around the world.
Netflix Executive Benjamin King counted a UK parliamentary committee in May that the show was “obviously a true story” of the abuse Gadd suffered “at the hands of a convicted stalker” and that Netflix “took all reasonable precautions to disguise the real-life identities of the people involved in this story.” After the complaint was filed, a Netflix representative said Variety: “We intend to defend this matter vigorously and defend Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”
Here’s what you should know about the case.
“Hang My Curtains”: How Harvey Claims His Identity Was Revealed
Like Netflix, Gadd said his team was careful to hide the person Martha was based on. Baby reindeercounting HQ in April that they “tried so hard to disguise her to the point where I don’t think she would recognize herself.”
Gadd too urged viewers avoid speculating about the characters’ real-life identities. “That’s not the point of our show,” he said. He said The Hollywood Reporter in May that he would never comment on the matter again, saying “if I wanted the real-life people to be found, I would have made a documentary.”
But, the complaint alleges, “the identification of Harvey as ‘Martha’ was easy and took a few days, as Harvey’s identity was completely undisguised.”
“Like ‘Martha,’ Harvey is a Scottish lawyer, living in London, twenty years older than Gadd, accused of stalking a lawyer in a newspaper article, and who bears an uncanny resemblance to ‘Martha,’” the complaint said. . “Furthermore, ‘Martha’s’ accent, manner of speaking, and cadence are indistinguishable from Harvey’s.”
The complaint also points to an important detail that allegedly exposed Harvey’s identity in the show’s very first episode: Donny jokes about hanging Martha’s curtains for her – a euphemism for sex; Later in the episode, among the dozens of emails Martha sends Donny daily, there was one that said, “my curtains are waiting for you, they are ready.”
It didn’t take long for social media users to discover a 2014 tweet from Harvey to Gadd it said, “my curtains need to be hung badly,” after which Harvey says she began to be inundated with messages from strangers who identified her as Martha.
Harvey then appeared in Piers Morgan uncensored on May 10 for a nearly hour-long interview in which she claimed to have inspired the show’s name – a reference to a childhood toy – but that almost everything else associated with her was false, despite the apparent similarities between her and the character Martha.
Morgan, during his interview with Harvey, argued that his quick identification showed that Netflix and Gadd’s duty of care had been “a spectacular failure,” and Harvey said at the time that he intended to sue.
Alleged defamation over depictions of aggression and harassment
According to Harvey’s complaint, Baby reindeer contains several defamatory statements about her. The program shows Martha sexually assaulting Donny, grabbing her penis without her consent, and later physically assaulting him by hitting him on the head with a glass bottle and pushing his eyes with her thumbs. Harvey claims she did not have sexual encounters with Gadd or physically attack him.
Furthermore, while Martha was shown waiting at a bus stop in front of Donny’s house for up to 16 hours a day for several days, Harvey denounced the depiction as a “psychotic lie,” claiming that she “never waited outside Donny’s residence.” Gadd.” (In her interview with Morgan, Harvey said she only met Gadd “two or three times,” later revised to “five and six.”)
And unlike the show’s Martha, who was depicted as previously convicted and sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for a separate case and later portrayed as having pleaded guilty to harassing Gadd and her parents, Harvey says she was never convicted of any crime or left. to prison. The complaint also stated that although Martha was said to have previously chased a police officer, Harvey did no such thing.
Because of all these “brutal lies,” the complaint said, Harvey was subjected to immense suffering. The barrage of messages Harvey received, including death threats, reportedly caused her to suffer from anxiety, nightmares, depression, isolation and a fear of leaving the house or reading the news. “Since he was identified,” the complaint said, “Harvey has been tormented.”
What is not mentioned in the complaint
Notably absent from Harvey’s complaint is any mention of the 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters that Martha sent to Donny, a central detail repeated throughout the show and on which Harvey has been questioned since the airing of Baby reindeer. “None of this is true. I don’t think I sent you anything,” Harvey told Morgan in May, before quickly revising his recollection to say he had only sent “a handful” or “less than 10” emails and only “one letter.”
“Even if the email story was true,” she added at the time, “the rest isn’t.”
In recent weeks, Harvey has been accused of sending several emails to other public figures, including Labor politician and potential future Prime Minister Keir Starmer, to whom he allegedly sent 276 messages in less than eight months. Some of the emails were loaded with profanity and insults, including calling Starmer a “stupid little boy” and using slurs against his wife, The sun reported.
Harvey also denied to Morgan that she had ever bothered Gadd during his comedy performances, as Martha allegedly did to Donny on the show, or that she had ever assaulted his girlfriend as Martha did. Neither, however, was mentioned in the complaint that describes how Harvey felt defamed.
And although Harvey stated in her complaint that she never stalked Gadd, she did not address the allegations she faced about stalking her former employer at a law firm — a detail that was also portrayed in Baby reindeer through the newspaper’s fictional headline “Sick stalker targets lawyer’s deaf son”. Like online detectives unearthed Newspaper articles from the early 2000s about Harvey allegedly harassing Laura Wray, a lawyer and widow of a former politician, Wray said The Daily Mirror in May that the show’s Martha was undeniably a portrait of the Harvey she remembered. “It was obvious to me and a lot of other people that she was my stalker,” Wray said. “The only thing they changed about her was her name. Lady Jessica [Gunning] Whoever played Martha was excellent… I mean, she had the same laugh, even the same kind of funny waddling walk.
But while Wray’s easy identification of Harvey may apparently help Harvey’s case against Netflix, Wray, in a appearance on Morgan’s show earlier this week, said he is considering his own lawsuit against Harvey, but hesitated because he feels Harvey doesn’t have the money. “Reparation orders are very expensive to put together,” she said. “There’s not much point in prosecuting her if she doesn’t have anything.” However, she noted, “certainly if Netflix gives you £11 million I will sue them.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
