A Scottish woman who says she is the inspiration for the Netflix hit, Baby Reindeer, is suing the streamer for at least $170m (£133m).
Fiona Harvey filed the suit in the US District Court for the Central District of California, saying she was suing for “defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence, and violations of her right of publicity.”
She said that the Baby Reindeer series falsely depicted her as a convicted criminal, who spent time in prison for stalking.
“The lies that Defendants told about Harvey to over 50 million people worldwide include that Harvey is a twice convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison, and that Harvey sexually assaulted Gadd. Defendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money,” says the suit.
“And Netflix, a multi-national billion dollar entertainment streaming company did literally nothing to confirm the “true story” that Gadd told. That is, it never investigated whether Harvey was convicted, a very serious misrepresentation of the facts. It did nothing to understand the relationship between Gadd and Harvey, if any. It did nothing to determine whether other facts, including an assault, the alleged stalking or the conviction was accurate. It did nothing to understand whether Gadd’s production, which ruined Harvey was accurate.
“As a result of Defendants’ lies, malfeasance and utterly reckless misconduct, Harvey’s life had been ruined. Simply, Netflix and Gadd destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.”
Earlier this year, she appeared on the Piers Morgan Uncensored Show to say that she was the inspiration for Martha on Paul Gadd’s hit series.
Gadd is not named as a defendant in the case, just Netflix, Inc and Netflix Worldwide Entertainment.
The first episode of the series starts with the words: “This is a true story.” This is described in the suit as “the biggest lie in television history.”
It continues: “It is a lie told by Netflix and the show’s creator, Richard Gadd, out of greed and lust for fame; a lie designed to attract more viewers, get more attention, to make more money, and to viciously destroy the life of Plaintiff, Fiona Harvey – an innocent woman defamed by Netflix and Richard Gadd at a magnitude and scale without precedent.”
Baby Reindeer is based on a one-man Edinburgh Festival play performed by Gadd. It launched on Netflix on April 11th and quickly became a huge hit for the streamer, and while Gadd said that details about the real-life Martha had been changed, online forums sought to identify her.
Harvey, who did an interview with Piers Morgan in May, said that she’d received numerous death threats and had been left fearful of leaving her home.
She also denied that she had acted like the onscreen character, Martha.
Netflix told Variety that it intended “to defend this matter vigorously and stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”
[Image – Netflix Publicity shot]
