Baby Reindeer ‘stalker’ sues Netflix for over $250m
The US lawyer for Fiona Harvey has explained the huge amount of money she is suing Netflix for, and who will be called to the witness box.
Entertainment
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A US lawyer for the ‘real-life Martha’ Fiona Harvey believes Baby Reindeer writer and star Richard Gadd will end up in the witness box during the multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
Speaking to Piers Morgan Uncensored, Harvey’s US legal representative Richard Roth said she had a “very, very strong case” and went on to admit he expects Harvey, Gadd and Netflix executives will testify in court in California.
Harvey, who did her first TV interview with Piers Morgan Uncensored, is demanding £135 million (A$257m) from the streaming giant, claiming the facts used in their hit series were not true, despite the series being tagged a true story.
In a candid interview with Morgan, Roth said he took the case because it “could be a watershed moment for streaming TV.”
“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.”
He claimed Harvey, 58, has “been destroyed. She’s been shattered by this. She gets death threats, she doesn’t want to leave her apartment.”
Reports in the press have said that Gadd, who plays lead character Donny Dunn in the show, was against Netflix billing it as a “true story.”
“It’s actually great news for me,” said Roth. “This is far worse than negligence. This is intentional misconduct, if [Netflix] actually were told, ‘Don’t make it a true story’ and they said it were true.”
He added he believed Gadd has “no credibility” as a witness following some of his own admissions in the show, including drug use and other troubling behaviour.
“Netflix has unbelievable culpability for saying at a minimum, that she’s a twice-time convicted felon. You saw the scene where she’s crying, and she pleads guilty? That’s all fabricated.”
On the huge sum of money being discussed in the lawsuit, he said: “It is a huge number, no doubt about it… If they wronged her, then she is entitled to their profits.”
“She’ll certainly give evidence. We’ll have Richard Gadd testify, we’ll have her testify. We’re gonna have a string of people at Netflix testifying as to what they did… why they agreed to the language in the front. What they did to check it. I also can’t wait to find out how, how [the executive] who testified in front of Parliament. My goodness, I mean, that’s not a blunder. That is real, real inappropriate conduct… [and could have] big repercussions from my lawsuit. Honestly, if he goes [back] in front of Parliament and says ‘I lied or I was wrong or I misspoke’. That’s very problematic for Netflix.”
For the full interview watch Piers Morgan Uncensored here from 5am AEST.
In legal documents cited by TMZ Harvey has accused Netflix of using many of her phrases used on old social media posts, leading viewers to track her down on social media.
She alleges the fact that ‘Martha’ was a lawyer too helped give away her identity.
In addition to defamation the claim also includes counts of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violations of right of publicity.
Harvey claims she has been harassed and her reputation damaged since the series went to air.
She has strongly denied all accusations made in the show.
In an interview with Piers Morgan last month, Harvey said the show was “a work of fiction”.
She accused Netflix and Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, who wrote and starred in the show, of “lying” in their “defamatory” depiction.
“They have billed it as a true story, and so has he, and it’s not,” Ms Harvey said in the interview.
“He is lying and they are lying.”
In the interview, she accused Gadd of “making money out of my misery”.
BABY REINDEER STAR COMES OUT
The surprise star of Baby Reindeer has made a discovery about herself.
Jessica Gunning revealed she is “a big old gay” and has publicly come out at the age of 38.
The English actress, who was terrifyingly convincing as a deranged and pitiful stalker in the hit show, has shared in a podcast that the revelation was even a surprise to herself, coming out privately just 19 months ago.
Chatting on the Reign podcast with host Josh Smith, Gunning said she came out in November 2022, before she rose to prominence in the acclaimed seven part drama which has drawn millions of viewers worldwide.
“And that was a mega, mega thing for me,” she said.
“I am surrounded by gays, like all my friends are gay, so it wasn’t that I was repressing anything, it was just that I didn’t think that I could be.
“But I realised I was a big old gay. I was like, ‘That’s what it’s been, that’s what it is’. And that was like a massive moment where everything kind of clicked and I made sense of myself then.”
Gunning went on to explain that because she is a “bigger” woman, she thought it was her plus size that made her feel “almost alien or like I was tagging along.”
“But as soon as I realised, I was like ‘No, it’s that’,” she said, breaking into her trademark accent, “and that was like the most liberating thing.”
Baby Reindeer star, Jessica Gunning publicly comes out as gay and movingly talks about coming out later in life for the first time on my podcast 'Reign'. Listen to the full interview here: https://t.co/aHUegXp1tQ#babyreindeernetflix#babyreindeer#Pride24pic.twitter.com/PFd9SH8sev
— Josh Smith (@joshsmithhosts) June 4, 2024
Gunning, who plays obsessive heterosexual stalker Martha, a lonely woman fixated on an unsuccessful stand-up comedian/bartender (Richard Gadd), said her homosexuality was a truth she had even kept from herself.
Gunning revealed she ignored numerous signs along the way, such as kissing Australian actress Cate Blanchett on stage every night during 2019’s National Theatre production of When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other.
“I should have known then,” she said.
“In hindsight, I used to go downstairs and watch The L Word, that’s a bit of a giveaway … So some of those things I should have really put two and two together. I took my time.”
Gunning also joked about her youthful fashion sense as providing a clue she ignored.
“I used to wear like dungarees, stereotypical I know, bum bag, wearing a backwards ‘No Fear’ cap when I was a teenager. So everyone around me probably was like ‘When is she going to come out?’ And it took me 36 years,” she laughed. “But I did it!”
When Gunning told her parents at Christmas she was gay, she said she “slept for 10 hours that night.”
Friends and loved ones have been “so supportive” and the experience has been “liberating,” “freeing” and “grounding.”
She is yet to be publicly linked to anyone romantically.
“I think we’re coming into a time when we won’t ever need to really come out, but when you do it is so exposing, but it’s also really lovely because you’re going ‘this is my soul a bit’, you’re going, ‘This is who I am’.”
Originally published as Baby Reindeer ‘stalker’ sues Netflix for over $250m
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