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Why Netflix 'should pay real-life Baby Reindeer stalker £132m'! Her plans for payback after 'slap in the face' are revealed in exclusive interview with her US lawyer
Back in the days when he was a penniless, struggling comedian, Richard Gadd could never have imagined the TV series he was penning at home in his tiny flat would end up a global hit.
This week, the creator, director and star of the Netflix series Baby Reindeer said he was 'crying with happiness' at news from the US that the controversial show, which has been viewed more than 85million times and purports to be a 'true story', had received not one but 11 Emmy nominations; three of them for him alone.
'You have made a little boy from a tiny Scottish town's dreams come true,' gushed the 35-year-old in a statement in which he thanked members of America's National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
'I hope this is a reminder for anyone going through a hard time right now to keep going. There is light in the darkest of rooms. Fight hard and you will find it,' he added
No mention, of course, of the bitter and burgeoning fall-out from the seven-part series about the dark and twisted relationship between a penniless, struggling comedian - modelled on and played by Gadd - and his older female stalker - a character named Martha who is played by actress Jessica Gunning in the show.
Fiona, 58, the woman identified as the real-life Martha appeared on Piers Morgan's YouTube show Uncensored in May following the release of Baby Reindeer in April
Fiona Harvey's lawyer Richard Roth said this week that the Emmy nominations were just the latest 'slap in the face' for Harvey
No mention, either, that the woman identified as the real-life Martha, 58-year-old Aberdeen law graduate Fiona Harvey, has blasted Gadd's show as 'the biggest lie in television history'.
Last month she launched a blistering $170million (£132million) legal action against Netflix in California - one which looks set to heat up at the same time as the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles in September.
This week, in an exclusive interview with the Mail, her lawyer Richard Roth, of The Roth Law Firm in New York, told me that the Emmy nominations were just the latest 'slap in the face' for Harvey who, he said, had 'suffered a life-changing tragedy' as a result of 'brutal lies' told about her in Baby Reindeer.
'There was some suggestion that the series shouldn't have been nominated for Emmys because of this ongoing issue,' he said. 'The Netflix claim that Baby Reindeer is a true story is clearly false.'
He said Harvey, who lives alone in a high rise council block in London, has been left 'vulnerable' by the controversy.
'She's afraid,' said Roth. 'She's afraid to go out in case people shout at her in the street. 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.'
Harvey's lawyer is not alone in his thinking. Last month, a high-profile Hollywood journalist called for the Emmy's 25,000-strong academy to snub Gadd and Baby Reindeer because 'it is a lie' and 'not awards-worthy'.
Matthew Belloni, former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and a founding partner of Hollywood-based media company Puck, pointed out that Netflix had stated at the very beginning of the Baby Reindeer series: 'This is a true story'.
'Only in the end does it acknowledge that scenes and characters have been changed. And it worked. Everyone watched, high viewership led to great buzz, which led to awards attention, all thanks in part to what we now know is a lie.'
Fiona is portrayed as 'Martha' in the Netflix show and is played by actress Jessica Gunning
Richard Gadd said he was 'crying with happiness' at news from the US that Baby Reindeer had received not one but 11 Emmy nominations; three of them for him alone
When Baby Reindeer first launched on Netflix in the UK back in April, Gadd claimed he had disguised the on-screen identity of 'Martha'.
Perhaps inevitably, it triggered a frenzied search for the real-life Martha. Given that Gadd had used some of Harvey's genuine tweets in the show, it didn't take internet sleuths long to work out who she was.
Both Martha and Harvey are Scottish, both studied law at university, both are around 20 years older than Gadd and both bear an uncanny physical resemblance to each other. Like her lightly-fictionalised alter ego, Harvey met Gadd in the North London pub where he was working behind the bar nearly a decade ago.
But while Martha is portrayed as a twice-convicted stalker who was sentenced to prison, Harvey insists she has no stalking convictions.
Roth queries Netflix's decision to state Baby Reindeer was true without first checking the facts.
'Why didn't they contact her and fact check or give her a chance to comment?' he asks. 'A lot of things are just false in the story. For them to literally just ignore her and not look to see that she was never convicted, not once, it's stupid or it's very brazen and very intentional.
'Netflix has made a lot of money from this. They could have checked but it's like they went for the money versus the honesty. They must have known there was a risk.
'I personally look at it from a human standpoint. She's very vulnerable. She has her own issues. To put her in the limelight is just really wrong.'
Harvey is suing Netflix, among other things, for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and gross negligence.
According to her 34-page legal claim: 'Harvey is physically weak. She has and continues to experience anxiety, nightmares, panic attacks, shame, depression, nervousness, stomach pains, loss of appetite and fear, extreme stress and sickness, all directly caused by the lies told about her in Baby Reindeer.'
The document filed at the Californian District Court goes straight for the jugular, stating: 'It is a lie told by Netflix and the show's creator, Richard Gadd, out of greed and lust for fame; a lie designed to attract more viewers, get more attention, to make more money, and to viciously destroy the life of...Fiona Harvey - an innocent woman defamed by Netflix and Richard Gadd at a magnitude and scale without precedent.'
Amid the ongoing legal row around Baby Reindeer, which takes its incongruous title from the pet name Gadd alleged Harvey gave him because he reminded her of one of her soft toys, fans will no doubt want to know the truth about what happened.
Over a period of four and half years, Gadd said he received 41,071 emails, 744 Tweets, letters totalling 106 pages and left 350 hours of voicemail messages from the older woman.
Fiona is suing Netflix, among other things, for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and gross negligence
Not surprisingly, given the latest twist in this disturbing saga, speculation is fast mounting that there might be a Baby Reindeer 2 on the horizon
Speaking to Piers Morgan on his YouTube show Uncensored in May, Harvey denied this and said she sent fewer than ten emails, only 18 tweets and just one letter.
'I think he probably made them up himself,' she said.
This newspaper's own investigations over the past three months has failed to turn up any evidence of a stalking conviction to back Netflix's claims, although Harvey received a 'First Instance Harassment Warning' from the Met Police in relation to Gadd.
Back in 2002, when she was living in Scotland, she was also the subject of an 'interdict' - a restraining order - which former Scottish MP's wife and solicitor Laura Wray tried to obtain against her. Wray also gave an interview to Piers last month, in which she alleged Harvey was a 'dangerous stalker', something Harvey denies.
In May, as the row over the show gathered pace - and drew in millions more viewers - Netflix executive Benjamin King gave evidence before the government's Culture, Media and Sport Committee, saying the show was 'obviously a true story of the horrific abuse that the writer and protagonist Richard Gadd suffered at the hands of a convicted stalker'.
His comments prompted then SNP MP John Nicolson, who was sitting on the committee, to later write to Netflix asking them to substantiate their claim.
On his personal website, Gadd invites fans to 'watch the making of Baby Reindeer documentary'. The 12-minute video, posted on YouTube, takes viewers behinds the scenes and sees Gadd give his thoughts on the phenomenon.
'It's a true story based on my early twenties when I went through a lot of pretty crazy things,' he says at the beginning of the video.
Later, he says: 'It's born out of true events. It's born out of a real life happening.'
He also admitted that when he and Harvey first met in the Hawley Arms in North London he was drawn to her at a time when he felt like a failure.
'Having someone at the end of the bar who was pure unadulterated adoration was kind of what I needed but it was foolish of me and it was using someone. I guess I was punished for that in quite an extreme way.'
He said that she was someone who was 'unwell' and 'needed help'. The mystery, then, is that he didn't try harder to obscure her identity.
And ironically, by writing about Harvey, who like him is from a 'small Scottish town', Gadd has entwined his life with hers forever.
The awards will be held at the Peacock Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on September 19 and will be broadcast live.
By then, a judge may well have decided whether or not to agree to Harvey's claim for a trial by jury.
A Netflix spokesman said last month: 'We intend to defend the matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd's right to tell his story.'
What happens in court over the next few months looks set to be as gripping as the series itself.
Not surprisingly, given the latest twist in this disturbing saga, speculation is fast mounting that there might be a Baby Reindeer 2 on the horizon.