Less than a month after the debut of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, which centers on creator and star Richard Gadd’s experiences with an actual stalker, the woman who allegedly inspired the character of Martha has revealed herself—and denied that Gadd’s portrayal of her is accurate. Fiona Harvey, a 58-year-old Scottish woman who has previously been accused of stalking, now claims that Gadd is “obsessed” with her.
Speaking with Piers Morgan on Thursday’s episode of his YouTube show, Harvey said she was forced to go public after the show debuted on April 11. “The internet sleuths tracked me down and hounded me and gave me death threats,” she said. “So it wasn’t really a choice.” VF has reached out to reps for Netflix and Gadd for comment.
Harvey, who says she has not watched any of the seven-episode series, referred to it as “obscene,” “horrifying,” and “misogynistic” in its depiction of Martha, a character played by Jessica Gunning. After first revealing her identity in an interview with The Daily Record, Harvey offered further details of her alleged relationship with Gadd, claiming to only have met him “two or three times”—a number that shifted to “five, six times” by the interview’s end.
Unlike Baby Reindeer’s Martha and Gadd’s Donny, Harvey says that Gadd did not buy her a cup of tea on the day they met. “Nobody gets anything for free at The Holy Arms,” she said, referencing the pub where they allegedly met, before claiming that Gadd “commandeered the conversation” she was having with another person at the bar. “He seemed to be obsessed with me from that moment onwards,” Harvey said.
Morgan pressed Harvey about the fact that both Netflix and Gadd say he is in possession of around 41,000 emails, 350 voice messages, 106 letters, and a number of tweets she sent to him. Harvey admitted to sending “a handful” of “jokey banter emails,” one letter, and some tweets, which can still be publicly viewed. One, dated September 1, 2014, reads, “did you get my emails or am I emailing the wrong address?” Harvey denied having left Gadd any voicemails. “Unless he was taping me in The Holy Arms, I didn’t phone him,” she said. Morgan asked, “Are you challenging him to reveal his audience?” to which she replied, “No, I’d challenge him to leave me alone.”
Harvey maintained that she was able to identify herself in Martha not because of the stalking, but the Netflix series’ title. “I appear to have written most of the show in my sleep,” she said. “I had a toy reindeer and he shaved his head, that bit is true. It was a joke. So I have inadvertently penned the name of the show.”
More to come…