Baby Reindeer became an overnight sensation following its release in April 2024, but after dominating awards season and becoming one of Netflix's most popular English-language series, the streamer has entered a pricy legal battle.
Fiona Harvey, who alleges that she was the inspiration for stalker, Martha Scott, has been given the green light to sue Netflix for defamation. After a judge ruled that Richard Gadd's series was not a "true story," Harvey and her legal team are gearing up to go to trial on 6 May 2025. According to Deadline, proceedings are expected to last two weeks.
In a new development, court documents have since shed light on discrepancies between Richard Gadd's stage show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019, and the series which aired earlier this year.
After highlighting that the respective adaptations had completely different endings, Harvey's team will argue that the discrepancies will "put Netflix on notice that details about Harvey's criminal history in the series were extremely likely to be false."
During the play, which was not billed as a true story, Richard Gadd's alter-ego Donny Dunn told audiences that Martha was never arrested, and was instead required to apologise to his stalker and stop bothering the police alone. "The last experience with the police was so burning, so embarrassing that I refuse to involve them again," he declared in the performance.
However, as fans of the Netflix series will remember, the seventh episode concluded with Martha serving four and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to stalking Donny. Harvey herself was never convicted of stalking, and has called Baby Reindeer "the biggest lie in television history."
Back in June, Fiona's US legal representative, Richard Roth spoke to Piers Morgan about the impending lawsuit, explaining why he decided to take the case.
He said: "I think there's probably three reasons. Obviously, I'm in the business of making money and I think there's a lot of money to be made here. I think the second reason is that it is really just reprehensible when someone says something's 'a true story'… And if Netflix is going to say this is a true story, then it better well be true.
"And to do that is irresponsible of them. And the third reason is that Fiona Harvey, you've had her on your show, she's been destroyed. She'd been shattered by this. She gets death threats, she doesn't want to leave her apartment."