The cast of Baby Reindeer including stars Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning have walked the BAFTA red carpet amid legal threats from the ‘real Martha’.
The recent Netflix series claims to tell the “true story” of creator Gadd’s real-life stalking experience, with Gunning portraying stalker Martha.
The woman who allegedly serves as the real inspiration for the Martha character, Fiona Harvey, took part in an interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored last week (May 9), in which she denied multiple times that she had stalked Gadd between 2014 and 2015.
She also said she was “taking legal action against Richard Gadd and Netflix” and that “we have instructed lawyers in part, but we want to explore all of the options out there. There are a number of people to sue.”
Gadd and Gunning, as well as fellow star Shalom Brune-Franklin (who plays Keeley), were seen at the TV BAFTAs last night (May 12), which was dominated by wins for Happy Valley and Top Boy. Gadd and Gunning also presented an award during the ceremony.
During her interview with Morgan, Harvey revealed she hadn’t watched Baby Reindeer, saying: “Not at all. I’ve heard about the court scene, about the jail sentences and all this sort of stuff… I haven’t watched any of it.”
She also counter-claimed the stalking allegations, alleging that she herself was the victim, claiming she met Gadd only a few times and asked him to “leave her alone”. Harvey also denied there were thousands of emails that could serve as evidence against her, adding: “I wouldn’t be suing if I thought there were 41,000 emails out there.”
Morgan said he believes that Harvey lied “quite a lot” to him in the interview, adding: “If [she] threatened legal action against Netflix and Gadd goes ahead, I suspect it will quickly emerge she did send all the emails, messages, and letters to him.”
The interview has drawn a backlash from viewers, with many calling it “exploitative”, “cruel”, “irresponsible” and “ghoulish”.
Gadd recently urged people to stop speculation over the real identities of the characters in the series, stating: “That’s not the point of our show”.
Meanwhile, TV writer Russell T. Davies has suggested that if Baby Reindeer were made by the BBC, there would have been “much stricter” measures to cover the identities of the real-life people involved, adding to The Times: “Compliance and editorial policy drives us mad here but I sleep at night.”
Amid the controversy, Netflix’s policy chief Benjamin King has said that Netflix and the production company “took every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story”.