‘She’s not in a good way’: Friends of the real-life Baby Reindeer stalker tell BETH HALE of the tragic events since Netflix propelled ‘Martha’ into the spotlight – and her £128m legal battle

Wearing an expression of faint disbelief, comedian Richard Gadd stood before an applauding audience proudly holding aloft three Emmy awards.

The triumphant hat-trick was, of course, for writing, producing and starring in the Netflix mega-hit Baby Reindeer.

This ‘true story’, as it is teased in the opening credits, documented the dark experience of a struggling comedian (modelled on and played by Gadd), who is stalked by an older woman, a character named in the show as Martha.

The actress playing Martha, Jessica Gunning, also took to the stage at LA’s Peacock Theatre last Sunday, taking an Emmy of her own for best supporting actress in a limited series.

It was the jubilant culmination of what has been an astonishing run of success for the series that launched in April.

The seven-part show has chalked up some 88 million views globally, making it one of the streamer’s most successful hits. And ‘struggling comedian’ is no longer a term that applies to Gadd, whose company profits quadrupled in 2023 to a healthy £836,000 and who has, we learnt this week, struck a new multi-year deal with Netflix for future projects.

As Gadd, 35, said on stage this week: ‘This is the stuff of dreams’.

The seven-part show has chalked up some 88 million views globally, making it one of Netflix’s biggest hits

No mention of the ongoing off-stage drama that has become, if not a nightmare, then at the very least a severe headache for both Netflix and the Scottish writer.

At the centre of that is Fiona Harvey, the 58-year-old Aberdeen law graduate said to be the ‘real life’ inspiration for Martha.

In June, Ms Harvey launched a no-holds-barred legal assault on Netflix, demanding an eye-watering $170 million (£128 million), claiming she had been defamed ‘at a magnitude and scale without precedent’. She is also suing for, among other things, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and gross negligence.

While Netflix is fighting to have the case thrown out before it goes to trial in May next year, according to newly lodged court papers Ms Harvey’s own account of her life now is certainly miserable.

‘I am afraid to go outside out of fear of being attacked. Some weeks I do not leave my apartment,’ she says. ‘I am suffering from, among other things, constant panic attacks, chest pains, anxiety, nightmares, depression, nervousness, stomach pains, loss of appetite, fear and insomnia.’

Her lawyer, Richard Roth, summed up the situation like this: ‘The disparate treatment and world in which they live is obvious and apparent. Richard Gadd is now a multiple Emmy award-winning star, solely as a result of Netflix’s fictitious ‘true story’, while she continues to suffer.’

So thinly disguised was her character that, the Mail can reveal, even Ms Harvey’s hairdresser identified her after watching the first episode. In a statement, lodged as part of her claim, Jon Hala, who runs his own salon in Canary Wharf, gives an account of watching Baby Reindeer with his wife and realising the woman on screen was his client.

That conclusion was obvious for many reasons, he explained. Fiona, like Martha in the series, is a strong and spicy Scottish woman who used to live in Camden.

Mr Hala said: ‘Martha looks like her. Martha sounds like her. Martha dresses like her. Martha is an attorney, like Fiona Harvey. Martha is very bright, and at times, extremely funny and endearing, like Fiona Harvey. Martha, also like Fiona Harvey, is a highly stressful individual who does have emotional issues…’ 

In June, the ‘real life’ inspiration for Martha, Fiona Harvey, launched a no-holds-barred legal assault on the streaming platform, claiming she had been defamed ‘at a magnitude and scale without precedent’

When contacted by the Mail this week, the stylist who’s been cutting and colouring her hair for seven years, said: ‘The last time I saw her was probably about eight weeks ago. She’s not in a good way because of what’s going on. The problem is, it’s hard for her to step out of the door.

‘When she was last here, it was definitely trauma [she was suffering]. It’s a very busy salon and we have a VIP room area and we put her in there, away from everybody. We do it for her peace of mind. She speaks well, she’s very gentle and she’s kind.’ 

His job, he says, is to make his client ‘come out feeling a million dollars’. ‘She drinks millions of cups of tea and we don’t talk legal stuff,’ he adds. ‘She would not tell anybody what’s going on in terms of money or whatever is going on with Netflix. She pays around £350 all in.’

A fragment of (expensive) normality in a life that has clearly been thrown into disarray.

Where the boundary between drama and reality lies in this saga is, as observers will be well aware, the subject of fierce debate.

Gadd maintained that while chronology and some events had been ‘tweaked slightly to create dramatic climaxes’, the drama remained, ‘very emotionally true, obviously: I was severely stalked and severely abused [the show also featured Donny’s abuse at the hands of an established comedy writer]. But we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it’s based on.’

Somewhat inevitably, a real-world frenzy to establish who the real-life Martha was ensued and it didn’t take long for internet sleuths to alight on who she was. On some key details, however, truth and fiction diverged. While the fictional Martha is a twice-convicted stalker, who is sent to prison at the end of the series, Ms Harvey insists she has no stalking convictions, still less served time.

When promoting the Baby Reindeer stage show in 2019, Gadd said that over a period of four and a half years, the real ‘Martha’ sent him 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters.

Ms Harvey, speaking to Piers Morgan on his YouTube show Uncensored, in May, denied this. Gadd’s own statement submitted to the courts in California, seen by the Mail, states: ‘While the series is based on my life and real-life events… it is not a beat-by-beat recounting of the events and emotions I experienced as they transpired. It is fictionalised and is not intended to portray actual facts.’

The statement does, however, then go on to document a long list of ‘real-life experiences’ with Ms Harvey, who he engaged in conversation back in 2014, offering her a cup of tea in the pub where he worked because he noticed she ‘looked distressed’.

Evidence in the form of transcripts, emails and so on have been submitted to the court as exhibits. They make for uncomfortable, sometimes shocking reading.

Gadd’s statement says she ‘frequently made personal attacks and threatened me in her emails’.

Gadd describes his fear escalating to the point he changed his daily routine to avoid her.

This newspaper’s own inquiries have failed to turn up any evidence of a stalking conviction but Ms Harvey is, however, said to have received a First Instance Harassment Warning, from the Met Police in relation to Gadd.

Solicitor and former Scottish MP’s wife Laura Wray has also given an account of seeking an ‘interdict’ – a restraining order – against Ms Harvey, back in 2002, after being ‘harassed’.

Backstage after the Emmys, Gadd, who has been open about his own battles with mental health issues, was reluctant to be drawn on events away from the cameras.

‘It’s easier in this day and age to focus on the negatives,’ he said tersely. ‘What you have to look at is what Baby Reindeer has done globally… It’s touched the lives of so many people.’

Painful words for Fiona Harvey.

One wonders whether Richard Gadd’s future Netflix projects will draw quite so closely from his own personal experience.