The overwhelming success of streaming as a way of consuming art and its very unique characteristics mean that, from time to time, a production manages to attract the attention of millions of people simultaneously, creating a true phenomenon that puts it under discussion at the tables home, restaurant and café around the world.
This was the case with ‘Baby Reindeer’, the British Netflix miniseries that is equal parts brilliant and disturbing, which tells the story of Donny Dunn, a comedian who works in a pub and ends up being the victim of Martha Scott, relentless stalker who worked as a lawyer and who had already been convicted of this same crime in the past.
In the real world, Donny is, in fact, Richard Gadd, author, director and protagonist of these seven episodes, which tell a very true part of his life, with macabre details: Gadd received from his ‘stalker’ an overwhelming number of 41 thousand and 71 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of physical correspondence.
TREASURE HUNT
The success of the series had an unusual consequence. There were those who started looking for the real Martha Scott and a journalist from the ‘Daily Mail’, Neil Sears, even managed to get in touch with the person who inspired the antagonist, who was not at all satisfied with the way she was represented.
“I have received death threats and insults from supporters of Richard Gadd. He is using ‘Baby Reindeer’ to harass me now. [Está a] bullying an older woman on television for fame and fortune. I am the victim. He made a damn series about me”, said this woman, whose identity the British publication preferred not to reveal. According to the article, she lives alone in an apartment in London, with a food budget of 30 pounds a week.
Martha, Baby Reindeer
Photo: Flash
After the interview, Sears himself claims to have experienced the persistently annoying personality of the real-life ‘Martha’. “I’ve been receiving a wave of incessant calls and scary messages like in the series for four days”, read the title of an article he wrote later.
COUNTERATTACK
Like a snowball, the story continued to have new developments, now in the real world. A woman went public to confirm that she was the story and, on her Facebook profile, she launched harsh criticisms of Gadd, in a tone coinciding with that used by her fictional representation.
“I don’t follow the statements of Richard Gadd or other failed comedians like him. I have no idea what he said other than a few quotes sent to me. It seems he went and got an ugly, fat woman named Martha to be played by an actress pretending it’s me,” this woman wrote.
“I don’t believe, nor does anyone I know, a single word he says. (…) I know he would do anything and say anything for money,” he added, promising to move forward with a lawsuit against Netflix.
Fans of the series found, on Twitter, several messages addressed to Richard Gadd, which coincide with details he exposed in ‘Baby Reindeer’, from mentions of “curtains” – a sexual metaphor that is used by the character in the series – to references to and -mails that the protagonist receives: “Did you receive my emails or am I sending them to the wrong email?”
THERE ARE MORE VICTIMS
Gadd wasn’t this stalker’s only real-life victim. At least according to Laura Wray, a lawyer who says she recognized Martha from the series and decided to go public with her experience, which began when she offered her a job.
“The series brought back so many moments that I had already forgotten. It did exactly the same thing to me, it made my life a nightmare. His reaction was the same as mine, I felt sorry for her”, he describes, to ‘DailyMail’.
“I fired her within a week. She was furious and threatened to do this, that and the other. She started screaming that my husband would regret it. Some of the girls in the office were shaking and thought she was going to attack me. Eventually, was taken abroad”, he adds.
Richard Gadd, Nava Mau, Baby Reindeer
Photo: Netflix
That’s when the storm started. According to the account, the woman began following her to her classes, sending threatening voicemails, including a death threat to her husband. Furthermore, she reported the couple to Social Security for alleged attacks on her son, who lived with a severe disability.
“The woman claimed that we beat our son and I had to explain everything. The Social Security workers believed me, fortunately, but I was furious. The child couldn’t walk or talk, he couldn’t do anything on his own… To think that someone suggested that we could Doing this was cruel,” he said, revealing that he obtained a restraining order.
