‘Baby Reindeer’ Emmy Nominations Are a ‘Slap in the Face’ for Fiona Harvey, Lawyer Says

For Fiona Harvey, the woman who claims to be the inspiration for Baby Reindeer’s stalker character, the Netflix series’ impressive Emmy recognition is a “slap in the face.”

Baby Reindeer earned 11 nominations for the 2024 Emmy Awards — including an Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series nomination and nods for creator-star Richard Gadd and costars Jessica Gunning, Nava Mau, and Tom Goodman-Hill.

But Richard Roth, Harvey’s lawyer, told the Daily Mail that the nominations were the latest “slap in the face” for Harvey — who “suffered a life-changing tragedy” due to Baby Reindeer’s “brutal lies,” he added.

“There was some suggestion that the series shouldn’t have been nominated for Emmys because of this ongoing issue,” Roth said. “The Netflix claim that Baby Reindeer is a true story is clearly false.”

Now Harvey is living in fear, Roth said. “She’s afraid to go out in case people shout at her in the street,” he explained. “She’s had death threats online, people yelling at her that she’s a stalker. It’s pretty unbearable for her to have been thrust into the limelight. What’s happened to her is just wrong.”

Gadd is the writer and creator of both Netflix’s Baby Reindeer and the autobiographical one-man show on which the TV series is based. In the Netflix adaptation, Gadd’s character, Donny, is stalked and incessantly emailed and texted by Gunning’s Martha after he shows her kindness at the bar where he works.

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This June, Harvey sued Netflix for $170 million, alleging defamation, negligence, and violations of right of publicity law, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She claimed she was the inspiration for Martha, and she accused the streamer of defaming her through the show’s statements that she’s a convicted stalker who was sentenced to prison.

“The problem for Richard Gadd and now for Netflix is that Baby Reindeer is not a true story at all,” Harvey said in a statement later released through her lawyer, per THR. “I am not a ‘convicted stalker.’ I have never been charged with any crime. … Nobody ever approached me for any comment on the accuracy of Baby Reindeer or the very serious and damaging allegation that I am a convicted criminal, with a serious criminal record, who has spent time in prison. Nobody ever asked for my permission to present me in this way or to use my image at all.”

A representative for Netflix told THR that it “intend[s] to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”

Baby Reindeer, Available Now, Netflix