The streamer was sued on Thursday by a British woman who says she served as the model for the stalker in the hugely popular Netflix series “Baby Reindeer,” suing for $170 million in damages.
Fiona Harvey has revealed herself as the real-life “Martha,” the aggressive, abusive, and deluded lady at the heart of Richard Gadd’s internationally popular television series, which asserts in its premiere episode that it is “a true story.” The complaint was filed in California and claims that the phrase above “is the biggest lie in television history.” “It is a lie that Netflix and the show’s creator, Richard Gadd, told in an effort to gain more attention and money, draw in more viewers, and destroy Plaintiff Fiona Harvey’s life in a vicious way. This lie is motivated by greed and a lust for fame.” After its April Netflix launch, the seven-episode series instantly gained enormous popularity.
The fictionalized version of the author, who meets a woman in the pub where he works, is the focus of the show, which is based on Gadd’s one-man play. Over the course of the next few episodes, Gadd is subjected to a very upsetting and prolonged ordeal during which Martha bombards him, his fiancée, and his family with hundreds of emails, texts, and voice messages. The show also depicts Gadd being sexually assaulted by Martha, who it is claimed has previously been found guilty of stalking a lawyer. Although the British author and actor has admitted to changing certain aspects about Martha in order to safeguard her identity, social media users have swiftly located her and started corresponding with her.
Following her outing, Harvey made an appearance on British television where she refuted claims that she had attacked Gadd or his girlfriend or that she had been inundating him with messages. The lawsuit claims that defendants misled more than 50 million individuals about Harvey, telling them, among other things, that he was a sexual assailant who had been found guilty twice and had received a five-year jail sentence. “Defendants continued to tell these lies because they were a better tale than the truth, and better stories brought in more money. Furthermore, the multi-national, billion-dollar entertainment streaming giant Netflix did nothing at all to corroborate Gadd’s “true story.”
Among other things, the lawsuit against Netflix requests $170 million and makes allegations of defamation and intentional infliction of mental distress. Netflix did not answer the AFP’s request for comment right away.
