BABY Reindeer fans have called out the show’s creator Richard Gadd, saying he ‘should have done more’ to hide the real Martha’s identity.
The psychological thriller, which dropped on Netflix on April 11th, follows the story of Donny Dunn as he gets stalked by a Scottish woman named Martha.
Gadd has claimed it’s a fictionalised version of his real-life experience, with a stalker bombarding him with over 41,000 emails, hundreds of hours of voicemails and dozens of tweets over a period of years.
Despite Gadd stating he had changed the identity of those involved “to the point she wouldn’t recognise herself”, fans nonetheless have scoped out who they think is involved.
Gadd later re-urged fans not to track down the real people as that’s “not the point” of Baby Reindeer.
But fans claimed they’d found the real Martha’s online accounts, and Fiona Harvey has since come forward publicly to claim she is the real-life Martha, with the story not playing out like it did on screen.
Like the character, Harvey is Scottish with shoulder-length brown hair, who studied to be a lawyer.
Unearthed tweets from two of her accounts from 2014, which like described on Baby Reindeer are largely made up of numbers, sees Harvey calling herself a “diet coke girl”, the drink Martha always orders on the show, which Donny gives her on the house.
There’s also tweets showing Harvey referencing “hanging up her curtains” which is a running euphemism gag which is taken seriously by Martha on the series, and messages from her asking if he’d recieved letters he’d sent her.
Now fans have turned on Gadd, claiming he “should’ve tried harder” to protect her identity if he didn’t want her found.
One wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Gadd & the programme makers don’t seem to have made much effort to disguise the identity of one of the people. When you advertise something as a true life story, people will be curious, & I’m astonished the programme makers didn’t take more care in that respect.”
“Don’t write a story based on real life, then ask people to stop speculating about the identity of some of the characters,” said a second.
“Is it just me but does anyone suspect it’s a setup like they didn’t hide identity 1 bit, also Internet sleuths are well known, if it is real I’m invested either way,” wrote a third.
“If Richard Gadd didn’t want [the] internet to find out who ‘Martha’ really is he would have changed a lot more than just her name for the film,” said another.
Since Fiona has gone public with the claim that she’s the real person behind the story, she has threatened to take those involved with Baby Reindeer – including Gadd and Netflix – to court.
“I have a claim against Netflix as this is being billed as part of a true story,” Harvey told the Scottish Sun.
“I’m a highly competent lawyer. I’d have to do it myself. I’m very good.
“I have a photographic memory and can memorise huge files. I was top in my school at everything.
“He’s come up with this character called Martha and he has put me right in the frame,” he added.
“This is a programme for the 20-somethings. The people with no lives, no jobs, whatever. I don’t want to be a celebrity.”
The Sun Online has contacted Richard Gadd’s representatives and Netflix for comment.
