I AM Baby Reindeer’s Martha but I’m no stalker – here are only parts Netflix got right, Fiona Harvey tells Piers Morgan
THE ‘real Baby Reindeer stalker’ claims the Netflix show has it all wrong.
Fiona Harvey has told Piers Morgan Uncensored she never went to prison or assaulted show creator and star Richard Gadd’s girlfriend as depicted in the smash hit miniseries.
The 58-year-old claims to be the inspiration for the character Martha, who is seen bombarding protagonist Donnie Dunn with thousands of emails and showing up at the pub where he works every day.
Harvey was ‘outed’ within hours of the show premiering on Netflix last month by internet sleuths.
In her first TV interview, Harvey has slammed Gadd as “psychotic” and the “ultimate misogynist”.
She blasted the series, which purports to be a true story, as “completely untrue”.
Speaking on Morgan’s new YouTube channel in an interview airing this evening, she continued: “Very, very defamatory to me, very career-damaging.
“And I wanted to rebut that completely on this show. I’m not a stalker. I’ve not been to jail, I’ve not got injunctions. And this is just complete nonsense.”
Harvey claims to be setting the record straight after being unmasked by fans of the hit Netflix show.
At the start of each episode it states ‘This is a True Story’.
But Harvey added: “We’ve had no apologies from Netflix or him, nothing. I mean, for someone who says he feels sorry for me, I’ve had no apology.
“My character seems to have smashed up a bar, sexually assaulted him in a canal, been to prison. There are a number of other allegations, and… That’s not true.”
Harvey said Gadd, who also stars in the drama series, was “making money out of untrue facts”.
And she has vowed to sue the show’s makers after being thrust into the spotlight and suffering online abuse.
During the interview, she denied ever being at his home, contacting his parents or sending thousands of texts and email messages.
During the much-anticipated hour-long show, she also admits owning four mobile phones and a string of different email addresses.
On being ‘outed’ within hours as the ‘real-life Martha’ online, she said: “On the internet, sleuths tracked me down and hounded me and gave me death threats. So it wasn’t really a choice. I was forced into this situation.”
Asked if she had watched the drama, she replied: “Not at all. I’ve heard about the court scene, about the jail sentences and all this sort of stuff… I haven’t watched any of it.”
“You’re not curious to?” Morgan added.
“No, I think I’d be sick. It’s taken over enough of my life. I find it quite obscene. I find it horrifying, misogynistic.
“Some of the death threats have been really terrible online. People phoning me up.
“You know, it’s been absolutely horrendous. I wouldn’t give credence to something like that and it’s not really my kind of drama.”
Saying that she had only met Gadd two or three times, she said she first heard about the Netflix show two weeks ago.
She said the interest in her was: “Absolutely horrendous. Absolutely horrendous. I couldn’t believe he’d done that. And so long after the first meeting, you know, we’re talking 10, 12 years ago. Really horrendous.”
Harvey added: “I just generally think he’s got extreme psychiatric problems… It’s a work of fiction.
“It’s a work of hyperbole, as I’ve always said. And there are two true facts in that. His name is Richard Gadd, and he works as a jobbing barman on benefits, in the Hawley Arms. And we met, two or three times…”
Morgan asked if it was true Gadd had offered her a free cup of tea after she walked into the pub where he was working, she replied: “No, that’s not correct. He didn’t offer me a cup of tea…
“I was in for a meal with, a drink of lemonade, and I was very, very hungry. I’m diabetic, so, very hungry. So that’s true.”
Morgan said: “And did you talk to him?”
Harvey said: “And he interrupted a conversation… he said, ‘Oh, you’re Scottish’, and basically commandeered the conversation. You know, I was talking to somebody. It’s pretty rich. Interrupt. So he seemed to be obsessed with me from that moment onwards.”
On whether she said he looked like a ‘baby reindeer’ toy she had as a child, she added: “I had a toy reindeer and he’d shaved his head, that bit is true, and there were reindeer in the shops because it was Christmas time or something. It was a joke. So I have inadvertently penned the name of the show.”
She also confirmed banter in the pub had been common, like talking about hanging curtains. “This was a Hawley Arms joke about curtains and a lot of sexual innuendo,” she said.
Harvey denied Gadd had ever been caught peeping in her window, adding: “False… I didn’t see him at my house. I think it would be impossible to look through a window… That categorically didn’t happen.”
Pressed on the 41,000 emails, 350 hours of voice messages, 744 tweets, 48 Facebook messages, and 106 letters she is alleged to have sent him, she retorted: “That’s simply not true. If somebody was sending somebody 41,000 emails or something, they’d be doing how many a day? Lots.”
Morgan replied: “Well, it’d be obsessive.” Harvey responded: “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No. It’s…”
She went on to say they had a couple of email exchanges, resulting in about 10 emails sent by her.
She said it was “jokey banter”, but she never sent Facebook or text messages – though then admitted she did send around 18 tweets.
Harvey went on to admit she had sent him one letter. Pressed on who had sent him all the correspondence, she said: “I have no idea. I think he’s probably made it up himself.”
She added she would be happy for someone to look at her computer.
On whether she ever heckled Gadd at a comedy show, she said: “I think I went to one. It was a long, long time [ago].”
And asked if she ever attacked one of the comedian’s girlfriends during a jealous rage, she said: “No, I don’t think he had a girlfriend.
“No, I have never been to his house or attacked any girlfriend or anything like that.”
When quizzed on the scenes showing Martha sitting for hours at a bus stop and whether she ever did that, she replied: “No, I don’t know, I don’t know where he lived. No. Absolutely no…
“This is a fictional character. Hyperbole, exaggeration. This is a fiction. It’s based on his imagination.”
Harvey also denied ever contacting his parents.
After watching a clip of the series, showing Martha pleading guilty to intimidating Richard’s character Donny and being sentenced to nine months prison time, Piers asked if she had ever been to prison or been charged, she replied “no” to both questions.
“That’s completely false. And I don’t think the actress sounds like me.
“I think the actress is from Glasgow, I think, but I’m not sure… I’m from the Central belt [of Scotland],” she continued.
What Fiona claims is true in Baby Reindeer saga
Fiona Harvey – who claims to be the inspiration for the Baby Reindeer character Martha – says there is only one thing true in the Netflix show.
The seven-part series, which premiered last month, was written by comedian Richard Gadd and purports to be based on his own personal experiences of being stalked and sexually assaulted.
Gadd, 34, plays a fictionalised version of himself – Donnie Dunn – but Harvey, who was ‘outed’ by internet sleuths within hours of the show being uploaded, is adamant the story is “completely untrue”.
The 58-year-old law graduate said: “It’s a work of hyperbole, as I’ve always said. And there are two true facts in that. His name is Richard Gadd, and he works as a jobbing barman on benefits, in the Hawley Arms. And we met, two or three times…”
On whether she said he looked like a ‘baby reindeer’ toy she had as a child, she added: “I had a toy reindeer and he’d shaved his head, that bit is true, and there were reindeer in the shops because it was Christmas time or something. It was a joke.
“So I have inadvertently penned the name of the show.”
A Netflix executive had claimed producers took every precaution to protect any real life inspirations for characters on the series.
Speaking in parliament, policy chief Benjamin King said that Netflix and Clerkenwell Films – who made the show – took “every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story”.
Mr King said Netflix needed to balance protecting identities with upholding the “veracity and authenticity” of the show.
“We didn’t want to anonymise that or make it generic to the point where it was no longer his story because that would undermine the intent behind the show,” the senior public policy director said.
“Ultimately, it’s obviously very difficult to control what viewers do, particularly in a world where everything is amplified by social media.
“I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with a world in which we decided it was better that Richard was silenced and not allowed to tell the story.”
