A scene from ‘Baby Reindeer’
A woman who says she’s the inspiration for the relentless stalker at the center of Netflix’s baby reindeer on Thursday filed a defamation suit against the streaming giant and is seeking at least $170 million in damages.
Fiona Harvey, a Scottish lawyer living in England who says the character of Martha in the widely watched limited series is clearly based on her, filed the suit in federal court in Los Angeles, also alleging that Netflix was negligent, intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her and violated her right of publicity.
British black comedy based on a one-man stage show by Richard Gad. Gad plays a doppelganger named Donnie Dunn who gives Martha, a quick-to-laugh customer, a free cup of tea at his day job at a pub. She eventually becomes a stalker who sends her thousands of emails, tweets at her hundreds of times, smashes a bottle over her head and gouges out her eyes, sexually assaults her and is eventually arrested and sent to prison.
According to the lawsuit, none of that actually happened.
“The lies that Defendants told about Harvey to more than 50 million people worldwide included that Harvey was a twice-convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison and that Harvey had sexually assaulted Gad,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants told these lies and never stopped because it was a better story than the truth and better stories made money.”
The lawsuit states that Harvey had never stalked a police officer before, as Gad’s character discovers on the show.
Netflix responded with a statement, saying, “We intend to vigorously defend this case and stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”
The lawsuit alleges that the streamer did nothing to determine whether the stalking, assault, and conviction were accurate, nor did it do anything to understand the actual relationship between Harvey and Gad.
“Netflix and Gad destroyed her reputation, her character, and her life,” the lawsuit states.
Gadd is not named as a defendant, but an email seeking comment from lawyers representing him was not immediately returned.
The show premiered on Netflix in April, and Harvey came out publicly about a month later, giving an interview to journalist Piers Morgan. But the lawsuit says viewers and British media outlets recognized him long before that and have been harassing him relentlessly ever since.
The lawsuit states that this was possible because on the show, Martha makes social media posts similar to those discovered by Harvey, including one in which she says, “My curtains need to be hung so badly,” which is used on the show as a sexual euphemism.
The suit also alleges that Harvey and Martha have an “uncanny resemblance,” and says their “accent, speech pattern, and rhythm” are “uneven.”
The lawsuit states that the claim at the beginning of the series’ first episode that it was a true story is “the biggest lie in television history” and that the defamation of Harvey is “of an unprecedented magnitude and scale.”
Harvey wants to keep all the profits for himself baby reindeer And has demanded that punitive and other damages be awarded which would amount to at least $170 million.
