Baby Reindeer has become meta entertainment

Fiona Harvey appears to be having the time of her life. She’s the ‘real Martha’ in the Netflix hit, Baby Reindeer, where she’s depicted as a convicted stalker with a rage problem. Denying almost everything, Harvey is suing Netflix for libel on a global scale, hoping to secure a tidy £133 million. Since the show aired, her story has become almost as sensational as the drama itself – it’s all over social media and is now playing out with particular ghoulishness and high-drama on YouTube.

Every day more videos appear analysing every aspect of Harvey – her psyche, her body language, her law case and her relationship with the show’s creator Richard Gadd. There’s so much of this stuff that it’s not crazy to say that the fallout from Baby Reindeer has become Baby Reindeer Two: This time it’s war! Indeed, it seems to be a new kind of reality TV. Apparently, 2.2 million of us are watching Love Island, which is being its usual rambunctious self – all bare bottoms, Turkish teeth and cascading hair extensions. But that’s dwarfed by the 14 million viewers (and climbing) who were gripped by Piers Morgan’s YouTube interview with Fiona Harvey, conducted last month, and by the multitude which is now tuning into the plethora of ‘commentary’ videos. 

It’s easy to see why. In Baby Reindeer, actress Jessica Gunning skilfully gave us a compelling Martha – one minute sweet and endearing, the next a monster; and the intensity and complexity of her relationship with Gadd was the key to the drama’s success. Understandably, the appetite to find the real Martha and to see how closely she resembled the dramatised version. Harvey didn’t disappoint. In the Piers Morgan interview, blinking rapidly with startled eyes and audibly humming, she accused Gadd of being a liar, making up the story and of abusing her.

She has ensured that the stakes are high as they could possibly be. The accusations in the megabucks California lawsuit against Netflix include defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and gross negligence. She says she has never had a criminal conviction and also that she didn’t send Richard Gadd the 41,000 emails that Baby Reindeer claims. But it’s no cut and dried case – as emerged when Piers Morgan secured a second YouTube scoop – this time an interview with Laura Wray, a Scottish lawyer, who was clearly, without any doubt, a victim of Harvey’s stalking habits (she has the receipts).

Wray could scarcely have been a more credible witness. She was as calm, measured and professional in her interview as Harvey had been reactive and strange and she told of horrendous experiences at Harvey’s hands. She’d employed Harvey as a trainee lawyer but, within days, the new recruit was a nightmare in the office, screaming at people, demanding money and being offensive to clients. 

Harvey lasted just two weeks in the job and, once dismissed, left threatening messages on Laura Wray’s office phone. Hours and hours of them. Wray and her staff were frightened of her: ‘I didn’t know what she was capable of.’ Staff were given panic alarms. The abuse went on for five years and included a nasty incident in which Harvey made five complaints to social services, insisting that Wray’s disabled son be taken into care. 

Eventually, Wray secured an interim interdict from the Scottish courts which worked. Harvey went quiet for the next 22 years. Now, Wray says, all the trauma is back. She didn’t watch YouTube before but is now obsessed with the endless videos analysing Harvey and her eccentric psychology. Wray points out that it may be hard for Harvey to secure a fortune on the grounds of damage to her reputation, since her reputation is one of aggressive stalking. However, if she does clean up in the Netflix case, then Wray intends to sue Harvey. After all, Harvey has said many despicable things publicly about Wray.Netflix, meanwhile, intends to ‘defend this matter vigorously,’ and to stand by Richard Gadd. In America, Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning are touring the chat shows, talking about Baby Reindeer freely and happily, as though the Fiona Harvey situation didn’t exist. Last week, they sat down on the Jimmy Fallon sofa to the whoops and adulation usually reserved for Hollywood royalty, soaking up their sudden and extraordinary global fame: from its British beginnings, Baby Reindeer is now a hit in more than 70 countries. Not just the show, it seems. But also the tempestuous aftermath.