Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd is helping Netflix in their defense against Fiona Harvey, a woman who claims to be the real life “Martha Scott” from the hit limited series.
Harvey previously filed a $170 million defamation lawsuit against the streamer and how they are portraying the character in the series.
Richard created the series and stars as Donny Dunn, a character inspired by himself and the actual experience he went through while being stalked by an older woman.
Now, Richard has submitted a declaration of support for Netflix, and specifically wrote, “Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey.”
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He then explained further: “The series is a dramatic work. It is not a documentary or an attempt at realism. While the series is based on my life and real-life events and is, at its core, emotionally true, it is not a beat-by-beat recounting of the events and emotions I experienced as they transpired. It is fictionalized, and is not intended to portray actual facts.”
“Throughout the process of writing the Baby Reindeer play and the series, I intentionally did not refer to Harvey by name in any way. When viewers began speculating about the real-life inspirations for various characters, I urged them to stop. I never intended the series to identify any real person as Martha Scott, including Harvey. Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey. Like all characters in the series, Martha is a fictional character with fictional personality traits that are very different than Harvey’s.”
Richard also referenced Fiona Harvey‘s Piers Morgan interview.
He wrote, “I was surprised that Harvey appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Though I have only watched certain segments, I understand she claimed that she was the inspiration for the Martha character, and that she never sent me thousands of emails nor left me any voicemails. She harassed and stalked me over several years, and since her interview…other individuals have contacted me through my agents and publicists and said they were also harassed by Harvey, but all were too scared of her to come forward.”
