Baby Reindeer: Fiona Harvey says she will sue Netflix and writer Richard Gadd

The woman who allegedly inspired the character of Martha in hit drama Baby Reindeer has said she will sue her creator and Netflix.

Fiona Harvey told Piers Morgan that the series, which features Martha as a stalker, was a “work of fiction”.

It accused Netflix and Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, who wrote and stars in the series, of “lying” in their “defamatory” portrayal.

The BBC has contacted representatives of Gadd and Netflix.

“They called it a true story, and so did he, and it’s not,” Ms. Harvey said in the interview. “He’s lying and they’re lying.”

The 58-year-old Scot gave the interview after he was identified online by viewers who tried to find out Martha’s identity, describing her as “absolutely horrific”.

In the interview, she accused Gad of “making money off my misery.”

But Coogan added: “Morgan is not the problem here – the real problem with this interview is that there is a market for it at all.”

Ed Power wrote in The Telegraph “The 60 Minutes conversation was less a sparring match between Morgan and Fiona Harvey than a somber question-and-answer session.”

The BBC asked Morgan for comment.

Morgan repeatedly challenged Harvey about the number of emails, phone calls and letters she sent to Gadd. The comedian said his stalker sent more than 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of messages.

Ms Harvey told Morgan there were “maybe a few emails” and later said there were “less than 10” emails.

She said she sent him one message and 18 tweets but no Facebook messages, and said she “doubted” he had those voice messages because she did not have his phone number.

Morgan also asked her about the fact that she uses six email addresses, and prompted other questions such as what grade she had in her law degree.

At the end of the interview, Harvey said she would also sue the Daily Mail. The BBC has contacted them for comment.

In a Sun column published on Thursday evening, Morgan wrote: “On a human level, I felt sorry for her that she had been so publicly dragged through the grinder in that way.

“But there were moments in the interview where suspicious alarm bells rang loudly.”

The BBC contacted Harvey after her interview but could not immediately be reached for comment.

Baby Reindeer, a word-of-mouth success for the streaming giant, has left many people fascinated and disturbed.

She flatly denied the real-life authenticity of key scenes in the series, including a scene in which character Martha is depicted as sexually assaulting Gad along the canal and attacking his partner.

She also denied harassing Gad’s family or coming to his house. “I’m not a stalker,” she said.

At the end of the series, Martha is seen pleading guilty to stalking Jade and is sentenced to nine months in prison.

But Harvey insisted she had never been charged with any crime, let alone gone to prison.

“This is absolutely untrue, it is very slanderous to me, and very damaging to my career,” she said.

When viewers started speculating about the real people behind the series, Gad, 34, posted a message on his Instagram story, urging people not to speculate.

“That’s not the point of our show,” he wrote.

On Wednesday, Benjamin King, Netflix’s head of policy, told British lawmakers at a parliamentary hearing focused on British film and television that they had taken “every reasonable precaution” to hide the identities of the people who inspired Serious’s work.

“We didn’t want to anonymize it or make it public to the point where it wasn’t his story anymore because that would undermine the intent behind the show,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s obviously very difficult to control what viewers do, especially in a world where everything is amplified by social media. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable in a world where we decided it was better to silence Richard and not let him speak.” Tell the story.”