Today, Explained -  The real victims of Baby Reindeer

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

The Netflix show Baby Reindeer is a hit. It's been viewed 56 million times. The writer claims it's a true story. Others call it slanderous fiction. The Ringer's Meecham Whitson Meriweather and Vox culture editor Meredith Haggerty on what we know for certain. This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Matt Collette and Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! vox.com/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2016, a Scottish comedian wrote and performed a play about a crazy time in his late 20s when he says he was the victim of a stalker, a woman he'd met in a bar. Mistake number one, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I mean, I was practically asking for it. Am I right, ladies? Four weeks ago, Netflix dropped a series based on that play, based on his life, called Baby Reindeer. It's since been viewed 56 million times and people cannot stop talking about it. Quite frankly, I don't think I've ever watched anything quite like

this. I haven't been able to finish watching it because it kind of like traumatized me a little bit. Like it freaked me out. That should not be allowed to be shown on screen. There's no reason for us viewers to have to watch what that man went through. Meantime, the internet identified the stalker and the woman who'd been identified said, yes, I knew Richard, but I didn't do any of these things. That's coming up on Today Explained. And there are spoilers in today's episode. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM.

And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. A sportsbook worth a slam dunk. An authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com

for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.

Baby Reindeer opens with a man named Donnie in a police station reporting a crime. And a title card tells us this is a true story. Meacham Whitson Merriweather, who's a culture writer for The Ringer and Vulture, among others, says the show's creator Richard Gad claims that Donnie's story is his story, the story of his life, which for a time was not going very well. Basically, our character, Donnie, played by Richard Gad, you know, who this happened to, is a comedian. And he has a very strange, like, unique sense of comedy. Now, I know what you're thinking.

Venus Williams has let herself go. Oh, sorry, God, no, I said the wrong name. That really doesn't catch on with a lot of people, but he's, like, desperate for showbiz. I'd moved to London to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a comedian. I had arrived with such grand plans to be someone, as though my brand of wacky bullshit comedy

was exactly what this world-leading city was missing. You're shite. And so you really find him at the beginning of this show just kind of doing these really strange stand-up jokes using these really strange props. It's a mink hat but instead of actual mink it's a it's a mink stapled to a hat. And you're just like how can this guy keep going on? It's like really sad. It's really desperate. But he, again, is a comedian who compartmentalizes everything, his trauma, his friendships, his job, his sexual preferences. A lot of things, they really just become a catalyst for this breakdown. And it really leads him to unpacking all of his trauma in front of a lot of people. What is the plot of the show? Where does this

show start? So it takes place in a bar, the bar that Donnie, our main character, works in. And this woman comes in. This woman's name is Martha. Can I get you something? No, thanks. She can't afford anything.

Not even a cup of tea? No. But he offers her a cup of tea. How about I give you a cup of tea on the house? But as their exchange is happening, she kind of presents herself as this high-powered lawyer. Trained in criminal law, moved to England, retrained, opened up my own practice, won several awards, now a lead and advisor to the government. She really just presents herself like

she is this woman who has it all, but she really can't afford a drink in a bar. And so it's that thing that really ties them together after he offers her that cup of tea and then she begins to stalk him every day now martha would come in each time with new makeup new hairstyles like a kid playing dress up she always opened the conversation by saying i've got a goal but then would stick around for the entire shift and then it becomes kind of a running joke with he and his barmaids boy donny areny! Are you going to introduce us to your girlfriend? So is this the one you've been telling us about? The supermodel?

Oh, you said that? Really? Yeah, so come on, Donny, out with it. When are you two going to shag? Ah, don't believe in sex before marriage. And so somehow she goes onto his website for him as a comedian and then gets his email. Then came her emails, around 80 a day continuing long into the night.

Her address, a random series of numbers and letters like spam, but the writing, exactly like she spoke, unhesitating, unfiltered, unapologetically raw. It's all this like really kind of, not grotesque, but it's really all of these things that are a culmination of this woman is not mentally well. It's like watching a horror movie and watching someone go into a room where you know they're going to be killed. You know this is bad and we want to yell at the television and tell them this is bad, but we don't have to because he already knows. I couldn't believe I had done it. Was it a moment of madness or an attempt at self-destruction?

I went to unfriend her many times, but I always stopped myself. She is ill, misunderstood. There are two sides to every story. And this is where I think the show got really interesting. At least this is where it hooked me because this woman is clearly lying about some things, right? God doesn't like a bragger, but when you're the go-to for the biggest political minds in the game,

you've earned a bragger, too. No, no, I'm not going to say who, so don't even go there. Fine, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alex Hammond, but you didn't hear that from me. She's flooding him with messages, with attention, with affection. You've got really manly hands, haven't you? Oh, yeah. Big, deep voice, chiseled jawline.

Should be illegal to have your bone structure too, you know. And it's clear that something is wrong, but Donnie keeps going. Everything about her intrigued me. Her endless confidence, her weird turn of phrase, the surprising poetry that slipped through the cracks of her madness. We've all been stalked. I'm sorry, it's 2024. We all know how to shut it down. A weird turn of phrase. The surprising poetry that slipped through the cracks over madness. We've all been stalked.

I'm sorry, it's 2024. We all know how to shut it down. He doesn't do anything to shut it down. And then the show begins to delve into why. Why did he let this happen? And where does it go from there? So it kind of just manifests itself because I think, I mean, as a comedian, you really want attention. And no offense to anyone out there who's a comedian, but you really want that attention. And I think that she makes him feel something.

And it's that desire that we all crave that really moves forward his desire to keep interacting with her. I think the thing that separates Donnie from your average person who's being stalked is, you know, we don't want this to happen and we try to nip it in the bud. With Donnie, it's this very strange sensation of him enjoying it, but also just being desperate for the attention that she's giving him. And it's not just Martha. These things have happened with someone else that we meet in later episodes, especially in episode four. So in episode four, we meet another character in Donnie's life who we really find out has caused him trauma. Donnie is again doing standup. It's not going well. It always has been. And he goes to a bar

and he meets these guys who worked on one of the shows that he absolutely loved. These people are so close and tangible when it comes to show business that he's like, oh my God, like, am I really in this circle? Look, I'm doing this show up at the Hoffie Bar. Come down and see it if you can. We'll try. But later on, you know, in that same exchange, he meets Darian, the like head writer on the show. Wankers, aren't they? Yeah.

And this guy is really, you know, sweet to him. He's nice to him. And he offers to help him with his writing, with his show. And they start working together. And eventually, Darian invites Donnie over to his home for a brainstorming session. That brainstorming session is like followed by Darian offering Donnie drugs and really not even offering.

It's more of a coercion into doing these drugs. What was their secret, by the way? What do you mean? Like, what did they all do to get where they are today? Listen to me. I'm serious. They threw themselves into everything I asked of them. What's all this?

This is the bomb of MDMA. And this is GHB. It relaxes you. Trust me, you haven't experienced anything like it. And so what happens is Darian begins to fondle him. And it really ends up as Darian sexually assaulting Donnie and you know this exchange that we just witnessed is really really harrowing and it's like heartbreaking because we see the realization that Donnie realizes this person I trusted this person that you know I care for and who I thought cared for me is is sexually assaulting me. And so essentially he leaves, but he goes back. And he goes back multiple times.

And the same thing really happens. He's coerced to do drugs. He's like out of it. And eventually Darian really like fully rapes him. He sexually assaults him. I would love to say I left, but I stormed out and never went back. But I stayed for days afterwards.

In fact, come Monday, I got an eye infection and lay on his floor as he bathed it in salt water. On Tuesday, I fed his cat while he took phone calls. On Wednesday, I finally went home. But again, Donnie keeps going back and this is really the root of the trauma. It's that desperation to be loved, to be, you know, believed in, that someone believes in what you can do, even though you know know, this showbiz career is not going well, he continues to go back for it. It's really interesting what happens in this show.

And I think, again, the reason so many people watched it, because, number one, Richard Gad says, this really happened, right? This is a true story. It's a true and terrible story. But number two, we're familiar with these dynamics where a powerful man says, I'm going to make you famous. Just come over to my apartment. Hey, here's a drink. But generally, women are the victims. That's what we're used to, right? Exactly, yeah. Here we have a man who's a victim, who then leaves that behind, but doesn't entirely leave it behind in the way that trauma victims often don't. And then he finds himself being victimized by a woman, by Martha. What do you think this show is trying to tell us about who the victim is? One of the things I really like about this show is that it's not black and white. It's not a bad person is doing a bad thing.

It's good people do bad things. Sometimes bad people do bad things, but they also do good things. I think this really puts into perspective that there is no perfect victim. I think we can all be victims at different times and we can all be perpetrators. The way that Martha is stalking Donnie really makes him a victim in that circumstance, but also the way he kind of keeps going back and egging her on and, you know, making her the butt of the jokes when they're in the pub and kind of just not ending it once and for all. I think it's really hard to say victim, even though this really awful thing happened to him. Is he a victim when it comes to Darian? Yes. And he's also just a part of these events. These aren't just things that are happening to him.

And I think it's really hard to say who's a victim and who's not. Meacham, Whitson, Merriweather, culture writer. Coming up, Martha Speaks. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an AuraFrame for himself. So setup was super simple.

In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday and she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids. And so we wanted to surprise her with the AuraFrame. And because she's a little bit older, it was just easier for us to source all the images together and have them uploaded to the frame itself. And because we're all connected over text message, it was just so

easy to send a link to everybody. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting oraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carvermat frames with promo code EXPLAINED at checkout. That's A-U-R-A frames.com promo code Explained. This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. Support for this show comes from the ACLU. The ACLU knows exactly what threats a second Donald Trump term presents, and they are ready with a battle-tested playbook. The ACLU took legal action against the first Trump administration 434 times. And they will do it again to protect immigrants' rights, defend reproductive freedom, fight discrimination, and fight for all of our

fundamental rights and freedoms. This Giving Tuesday, you can support the ACLU. With your help, they can stop the extreme Project 2025 agenda. Join the ACLU at aclu.org today. It's Today Explained. Meredith Haggerty edits the culture at Vox.com. So what's happened in the real world since Baby Reindeer appeared on Netflix? So this show is adapted from two pieces of theater that were adapted from the creator Richard Gad's real life. And because of that, there are real people who are implicated in some very bad behavior. So for some folks, like the most active audiences, the main appeal of Baby Reindeer seems to be this real life mystery. Who are the real people that Gad based his show on? So watch how crazy this gets.

So not only did they find out who Martha is, her name is Fiona Harvey, but they found her old Twitter too. So Internet Web Sleuths did what Internet Web Sleuths do, which is they dug in as much as they could with the information they had from the show. They cross-referenced news reports with incidents that were mentioned. They went digging into social media to see who tweeted at Richard Gadd a whole lot. And they also did the third thing they might do, which is kind of just guessing. The clues about the male director in the show were a little bit more oblique. It's definitely less clear who that was based on. But fans found a prominent British theatre director and began harassing him. After that, he contacted the police and Richard Gadd himself went to social media to say,

this is not the man that my show is based on. Please leave this man alone. Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd has asked fans to stop speculating on who the real life people are from the show. Richard then also shared on his Instagram story saying, hi, everyone. People I love have worked with and admire, including Sean Foley, fairly getting caught up in speculation. The details about Martha were perhaps a little bit less obscure. And so people online were able to find her pretty easily because of the criminal history that was mentioned in the show, because of her history of using social media to reach out to Richard Gad. And first, that started with the web sleuths harassing her to some degree, the Daily Mail finding her, The Sun, other British tabloids having conversations with her. And then the woman who Martha is supposedly based on, a woman named Fiona Harvey, revealed herself on Piers Morgan to be supposedly the real Martha and was interviewed by Piers Morgan. It's taken over enough of my life. I find it quite obscene. I find it horrifying, misogynistic. Some of the death threats have been really terrible online. People phoning me up. You know, it's been absolutely horrendous. How did that interview go? What did she have to say?

So that interview aired yesterday, and it was an hour of a woman who, you know, does not necessarily seem to be completely in control of a situation, trying to deny having stalked Richard Gad, having been obsessed with him, having sent him all these emails or letters, having sexually assaulted him by a canal. This Martha character seems to have smashed up a bar, sexually assaulted him in a canal, been to prison. There are a number of other allegations there. And none of that is true? That's not true.

There are a lot of specific things in the show that she was really adamant that she wanted to deny, but she does maintain that she is the basis for Martha and he has impugned her in this way. They have billed it as a true story, so has he, and it's not. It's blatantly not. Even if the email thing was true, the rest is not. So why would you qualify that, Fiona? Sorry, why would I what? Why would you suddenly qualify even if it's true about the emails?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. So in my estimation, it was a pretty messy waste of time for an hour. Morgan didn't come with any hard evidence that would nail Fiona Harvey on her stalking past, but he also didn't treat her with any particular empathy. So instead, we're just left with an hour of denial and evasion. Okay, I really liked it, but I hear your point. I mean, okay, so you point to the lack of hard evidence. I noticed that too. Yeah. This woman, Fiona Harvey, in real life, she has faced accusations of stalking. Yes. Now, this is a different person, not Richard Gad.

How did Piers Morgan address that with her? So, in the past, Fiona Harvey has been accused of stalking a woman named Laura Ray and her husband, a solicitor who had previously hired Fiona Harvey. And Fiona Harvey's reaction to that was that, yes, she had been hired by Ms. Ray, and yes, they had not gotten along. Yes, she'd been fired, but she had never actually served an interim interdict because, as she explained it, Laura Ray messed up her attempt to serve her with this, what is effectively a restraining order, which is perhaps not the strongest rebuttal to the idea that you've been stalking people, that they didn't do a good job of serving you a restraining order. So, you know, it ended up in just a little bit of an impasse, but it seems pretty clear that Fiona Harvey has had

troubled relationships in the past with other people who did not appreciate her contact. Her response to that, you know, there's a technicality here, guys. That actually seemed to me to be the response of a lawyer. And it's worth noting, Fiona Harvey says she has a law degree. I think the understanding is that she does have a degree from Aberdeen University in law. Whether she continued beyond that is unclear, but that is what led her to get a job with Laura Ray in the first place. And she says she's not going to let this go, right? She seems very aware that he has made

some sweet Netflix money. And they talked about specific numbers. Do we know how much? Piers Morgan asked her. She has her theories. She's going to sue everybody is what she's claiming. She's going to sue everybody. And I think actually she asked Piers Morgan asked her. She has her theories. She's going to sue everybody, is what she's claiming. She's going to sue everybody. And I think, actually, she asked Piers Morgan if he knew how much Richard Gadd had made, which I thought was a really compelling moment in that interview. Can I ask a question? Do you happen to know how much he's made out of this Netflix thing? I would imagine several million pounds.

Yes, I would say three to four million. A lawyer I know well thought he was a wee nobody and he suggested 750 to 100,000. I said, no, I think you're looking more about three or four million. And I think the more he publicises, it goes up, you know, according to how much it's streamed. I don't know. I don't know what the contract they signed. I think he's done bloody well. So, yes, Fiona Harvey, I think on the one hand, seems extremely hurt by what has happened. I think that seems true and real. And also, she sees what a cash cow this is. And she mentioned it a number of times while talking about both Richard Gadd and the actress who plays the character of Martha, whose name is Jessica Gunning. I love when she was like, her accent wasn't quite right. That's a different Scottish accent than the accent. Like, I don't know. I don't know.

I found her fascinating. There was a part in there where Jessica Gunning was speaking for herself. Jessica Gunning is actually a British actress. And Fiona Harvey pointed out, she doesn't sound Scottish at all. And Piers Morgan had to be like, yeah. She doesn't even sound Scottish in that interview. Her accent seems to be varying. Well, she's not.

She's English. She's an accentist. The problem at the heart of all of this, as Fiona Harvey argued, is that Netflix made the contention that this is a true story. What is the problem with that? And how has Richard Gadd responded to all of this? The show does start with explicitly the words,

this is a true story, which is unusual. Often stories that are based on real life will start with, this is based on a true story, or this is a true story, kind of, or, you know, sort of hedging language like that. This is also, I would say, primarily a piece of autofiction, which is a genre that sort of blurs the line between memoir and fiction. It is not, say, a piece of true crime, which is the kind

of genre where I think they're a little more careful about what is true and what is untrue so what Richard Gattis had to say about all this is he had made the Martha character unrecognizable he said we've gone to such great lengths to disguise her to this point that I don't think she would recognize herself. And I will say if Fiona Harvey is Martha, no, he did not. No, he sure did not. It took like days. It was like days before people found her. It was almost no time at all. It was really quite fast. Also, a thing to bear in mind here is if the character that he depicted, who is, you know, a lonely, needy, and insecure woman, but who also has a bit of a megalomaniacal streak, there's no way that person wasn't going to take their time in the spotlight. So,

this feels a little bit inevitable. One of the things we can take away from stories like these is that when the public gets interested in a thing and then gets online, the public really can wreck some people's lives. And even when I was watching the interview last night, Martha's interview, Fiona Harvey's interview, I felt pretty bad. I felt pretty bad. I was like, I don't know anything about her. I don't know that she deserves this.

But she is maintaining her innocence. She's saying, I did not do this. And he had no right to do this to me. Do you think there is an ethical way to be an engaged viewer of a show like Baby Reindeer? It's complicated because I think Richard Gad, what he wanted to discuss with the show and what he wanted to bring up are the really nuanced pieces of having a crime committed against you, of being engaged with a person who is perhaps unwell in some way. And he has argued that both he and Martha are victims. He says, I can't emphasize enough how much of a victim she is in this. So I think knowing that that's the centerpiece here, that should dictate perhaps how you engage with this particular show. Other shows ask for different things,

but this show was really about how difficult it can be just to be a person in the world to some degree. And I think that maybe should be a signal that we don't need to dig everything up. At the same time, people are curious, people are bound to behave this way. And it's pretty hard to legislate how people behave about a piece of art once you put it out there. So I think this is just sort of par for the course these days if you are going to traffic in the line

between truth and fiction. Vox's Meredith Haggerty. Today's show was produced by Hadi Mouagdi and edited by Amin El-Sadi. Patrick Boyd engineered and Matthew Collette stepped into fact check. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. Thank you.