At the beginning of the seven-part series, it is labelled a “true story”. However, Harvey’s lawsuit claims that phrase is the “biggest lie in television history”.
“Netflix, a multinational billion dollar entertainment streaming company did literally nothing to confirm the ‘true story’ that Gadd told,” the lawsuit alleges. “It told these lies, and never stopped because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money.”
Speaking in interviews following the release of Baby Reindeer, Gadd said they had been careful to conceal the true identity of the real-life Martha. “We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognise herself,” he told GQ in a recent interview. “What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone.”
However, the lawsuit claims people were able to easily uncover her real identity, with many discussing it at length on platforms like Reddit and TikTok.
“The identification of Harvey as ‘Martha’ was easy and took a matter of days as Harvey’s identity was completely undisguised,” it claims. “Like ‘Martha’, Harvey is a Scottish lawyer living in London, twenty years older than Gadd, was accused of stalking a lawyer in a newspaper article, and who bears an uncanny resemblance to ‘Martha’.”
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The suit also notes a particular sexual innuendo used in the show, “hang my curtains”. This exact phrasing was quickly found by internet sleuths in a tweet written by Harvey to Gadd in 2014, thereby further identifying her. Once Harvey was identified, it is alleged she received messages and phone calls from strangers, including death threats.
Harvey is seeking around $255 million from Netflix. This includes about $75 million for actual damages, around $75 million in compensatory damages for “mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life and loss of business”, another $75 million “for all profits from Baby Reindeer”, and at least $30 million in punitive damages. All exclude legal fees and costs.
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