Fiona Harvey, the woman who previously came forward as the inspiration for the deranged stalker in Netflix's surprise hit Baby Reindeer, has now hit the streaming platform with a defamation lawsuit. The suit , filed today in U.S.
District Court for the Central District of California, seeks damages for $170 million. This includes "actual damages" of $50 million, compensatory damages of $50 million, show profits of $50 million, and punitive damages of $20 million. Somewhat surprisingly, Richard Gadd, who created and starred in the series based on his own experience of being stalked, is not a defendant in the lawsuit.
Harvey is said to be the inspiration for the character known as Martha, played by Jessica Gunning in Baby Reindeer. The series follows a struggling comedian named Donny, played by Gadd, after Martha meets him at the bar where he works and becomes fixated on him. According to the series, the stalker sent Gadd/Donny 41,000 emails, 744 tweets, 100 pages of letters, and 350 hours of voicemails over the course of multiple years, many of which were used in Baby Reindeer.
Jessica Gunning played the Martha character in Netflix's Baby Reindeer. (Image courtesy of Netflix) But the lawsuit alleges Netflix did "literally nothing to confirm the 'true story' that Gadd told." The lawsuit specifically points to a line of text at the beginning of the first episode of Baby Reindeer, which reads, "this is a true story," calling it "the biggest lie in television history.
" "It is a lie.