Next Tuesday, Baby Reindeer star Richard Gadd will walk the red carpet in front of London’s Tate Modern alongside a glittering host of celebrities before being honored as one of GQ magazine’s Men of the Year.
Actors Jude Law and Nicole Kidman will be among the stars presenting the awards, and the publication brilliantly describes Gadd as one of the “most inventive and consequential” figures in culture who is “breaking the rules and changing the game.”
It seems certain to be another ‘pinch me’ moment for Gadd, who was an obscure, impoverished comedian until the Netflix show he wrote and starred in catapulted him to almost instant international stardom in April.
The magnitude of his success is astonishing.
Some 65 million viewers around the world have watched Baby Reindeer, the seven-part series that is a dramatized account of the abuse and harassment suffered by Gadd in real life. It is one of the biggest shows ever aired on the streaming platform.
In September it won three Emmy Awards: writing, acting and outstanding miniseries. Then he said on stage: “You have made the dreams of a little boy from a small Scottish town come true.”
And it is expected to be successful again at the Golden Globes in January, supported by an expensive Netflix advertising campaign.
Last month, Netflix also announced that it had secured his writing services in an exclusive “first look” deal to develop ideas and scripts and bring them into production.
On Tuesday, Richard Gadd will be honored as one of GQ magazine’s Men of the Year.
Fiona Harvey claims she has been defamed “on an unprecedented magnitude and scale” and that her life has been ruined as a result.
As many, many Baby Reindeer fans will know, in the series his name is Donny Dunn and his stalker is known as Martha Scott.
We now know, of course, that Martha is based on law graduate Fiona Harvey, and she is suing Netflix for $120 million (almost £1 million) in damages for her portrayal on the show.
She claims she has been defamed “on an unprecedented magnitude and scale” and that her life has been ruined as a result.
In a recent interview with GQ, Gadd said he couldn’t speak about the legal action but felt “blown away” by his experience of sudden fame.
‘I almost don’t know. “I just feel knocked down,” he said.
He went on to complain that he had found the publicity frenzy surrounding Baby Reindeer disturbing.
“I couldn’t escape it,” he said. ‘Turn on the TV, there will be something on TV. Turn on the radio, they’d be talking about it. I would go to Sainsbury’s and it would be in the papers.
He says he even had to send his parents on a long vacation so he could get away from journalists.
Unsurprisingly, these complaints considerably infuriate Fiona Harvey, who says she is too traumatized to leave her London flat as a result of being globally defamed, and are a red rag for her lawyers.
It is common procedure in the United States to appoint a mediator in disputes like this, in the hope that the parties can reach an agreement before the time and expense of a court hearing.
In this case, a mediator was appointed last month, leading many observers to wonder if the off-screen drama surrounding Baby Reindeer was finally coming to an end.
However, the Mail can reveal that Harvey’s lawyers have refused to mediate with Netflix; Instead, they are confident that they will go to court and win big.
And they have a lot to say about former bartender Gadd and what they feel is his pity party.
Richard Roth, the New York lawyer representing Harvey, says: ‘Are you complaining about the fame that comes with winning the Emmys and being a famous producer? Does he complain that he makes money and is famous? What a poor guy. Give me a break! It’s like Beyonce complaining that she’s famous.
‘Look at the difference with Fiona. He received death threats.
Roth adds: “There’s one person who made money besides Netflix and it’s Richard Gadd. An entity. He’s accepting Emmy Awards in front of hundreds of people in Hollywood. He has a lucrative new business and he’s a victim? I have to say that’s a nonsense.
He brought it on himself. It wasn’t something that was imposed on him like what happened with Fiona.
‘Imagine while Richard Gadd writes the play in 2017, isn’t this what he always wanted? Every producer, isn’t this your dream? Don’t you want to write a play to become famous? To me, I’d say that’s nonsense. Everyone who wrote a play and acted in it, that’s all they want.
As for the next GQ award, it seems to put an end to the outrage. Roth comments: “It’s nauseating.” That he is one of the Men of the Year is grotesque. He’s Man of the Year and she sits at home worrying about going out. She has been very victimized.
Fiona Harvey, who inspired the character of Martha on the show, first appears in Baby Reindeer on Netflix.
Richard Roth, the New York lawyer representing Harvey, says: “Does he complain about the fame of winning the Emmys and being a famous producer?…what a poor guy!”
In legal documents, Harvey has said: “I am afraid to go out for fear of being attacked.” Some weeks I don’t leave my apartment. I suffer, among other things, constant panic attacks, chest pains, anxiety, nightmares, depression, nervousness, stomach pains, loss of appetite, fear and insomnia.’
At the center of the dispute over Baby Reindeer is an on-screen ad at the beginning that describes it as a “true story,” rather than “based on” a true story or something similar.
Harvey, whose identity was quickly discovered by viewers of the show who checked Gadd’s social media accounts, says the dramatized version did not do enough to disguise his identity and also differed from the truth in several crucial and damaging ways.
For example, the Netflix show ends with Martha, a convicted stalker following an earlier campaign against a lawyer, pleading guilty to stalking Donny and receiving a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
Harvey has never been convicted of any crime, much less gone to prison for it. Your clear DBS check is included in a recent test package.
Furthermore, her lawyers argue that in the play on which the series was based, also called Baby Reindeer, which was performed on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Martha is not arrested or convicted of any crime, nor does she go to prison.
Instead, in the play Donny is told to “apologize” to Martha and stop “bothering” the police. It ends with him getting a restraining order against her.
His team says comparisons between the play and the TV series show that Netflix knew from the beginning that Harvey had never been convicted of harassment once, much less twice.
For his part, Gadd says in legal documents that Harvey first received a harassment warning letter in 2016.
After months of new abuse, including Harvey allegedly telling Gadd, “If I want you dead, you’re fucking dead,” Gadd says she received another harassment warning letter in the first instance in 2017. It includes her correspondence with the police as evidence.
Netflix has argued that the show should be seen as “substantially true” because Harvey arguably did similar things in real life, but that argument failed in court.
In a September ruling, District Judge Gary Klaus concluded that the show was not a “true story” and that Netflix “made no effort to investigate” the accuracy of the events presented in the show, nor did it take steps to conceal the truth. Harvey’s identity. .
The judge said his “alleged actions (in stalking Gadd) are reprehensible” but that the version presented in Baby Reindeer was worse.
His ruling said: “There is a big difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law.”
Richard Gadd won Emmy Awards for writing, acting and outstanding miniseries. He appears alongside his co-star Jessica Gunning, who plays Martha.
Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning star in Netflix’s Baby Reindeer
He also said there were big differences between inappropriate touching (what allegedly happened in real life) and sexual assault (the TV version), as well as between pushing (real life) and gouging another person’s eyes (the TV version).
“While plaintiff’s alleged actions are reprehensible, defendants’ statements are of a worse degree and could produce a different effect on the mind of the viewer,” he wrote.
Netflix also argued that most viewers would understand that the claims made in the show are “not factual”; because it was shot in the style of a drama.’
However, the judge disagreed, writing: “While the statements were made in a series that largely bears the hallmarks of a black comedy-drama, the first episode unequivocally states that ‘this is a true story,’ inviting thus encouraging the public to accept the statements as fact.’
Netflix also said that the similarities between the real and fictional people were so extensive that average viewers would not have been able to identify Harvey as Martha. The judge again disagreed, saying that Ms. Harvey and Martha shared “specific similarities” that few others could say they share.
Netflix is appealing that ruling. Both sides were due to go to mediation on the appeal this week. However Roth explains: ‘We were released from mediation because this case is not ready to be mediated. We are very confident in our position and we are not going to reach an agreement.
“The person at the mediation office wanted to know if we were willing to reach an agreement and we said ‘no.’
He continued: ‘Mediation is dead, but whether Jesus rose from the dead, you never know. I never say never, but right now there is very little chance of it being solved. The courts, especially in the US, are always pushing for you to settle. I can’t say the case will never be solved, but it seems unlikely.
Instead, it looks like Netflix will run a Golden Globes campaign under the shadow of this legal action. A spokesperson for the streamer declined to comment. All Netflix has ever said outside of the legal documents is that they will support Gadd’s right to tell his true story about how he was harassed.
Roth comments: ‘Netflix is playing a very, very risky game by continuing. Not only journalists are seeing this, but also the industry, entertainment people, lawyers, people who are producers, television executives…
“It’s not smart to continue like this.”