LOS ANGELES, June 7 — A British woman who claims she was the inspiration for the stalker in the smash Netflix hit Baby Reindeer sued the streamer Thursday, demanding US$170 million in damages. Fiona Harvey has identified herself as the real-life “Martha,” the delusional, violent and abusive woman at the centre of Richard Gadd’s global phenomenon, which claims in its opening episode to be “a true story.” “The above quote.
.. is the biggest lie in television history,” the lawsuit, filed in California, says.
“It is a lie told by Netflix and the show’s creator, Richard Gadd, out of greed and lust for fame; a lie designed to attract more viewers, get more attention, to make more money, and to viciously destroy the life of Plaintiff, Fiona Harvey.” The seven-episode series premiered on Netflix in April and quickly became a huge hit. The show, based on Gadd’s one-man play, follows a fictionalised version of the author who meets a woman in the pub where he works.
What unspools over the following episodes is a deeply disturbing years-long ordeal for Gadd in which Martha sends thousands of emails, texts and voice messages as she harasses him, his girlfriend and his family. Martha, who the show claims to have been previously convicted for stalking a lawyer, is also shown to sexually assault Gadd. The British writer and performer has told journalists that he changed details about Martha in an effort to protect her identity, but armchair detectives quickly tracked h.
