Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd reveals why he has banned his parents from watching Netflix hit – and says when he first reported his stalking ordeal to police they couldn’t believe he was being threatened by a woman

Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd says he has banned his parents from watching his unexpected Netflix hit.

The 34-year-old’s darkly comedic drama is based on his real-life experiences of being stalked by a woman he felt sorry for after meeting her in a London pub where he pulled pints – after being sexually assaulted by a top figure in the comedy world. .

Gadd says in a new interview that he struggled to get his concerns about the woman, named Martha on the show, taken seriously by police because, he says, the idea of ​​a man being stalked by a female admirer can be “downplayed ‘.

But while 14 million people have pored over every detail of the show, Gadd’s parents in his native Fife are not among them – as the comedian has banned them from watching it and pays for their Netflix, they will know if they do.

But he says making the show with Netflix, based on two critically acclaimed shows he wrote and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, was cathartic and helped him come to terms with what happened earlier in his life.

The show is based on his experiences being stalked by a woman named Martha, played by Jessica Gunning in the show (above)

Gadd says making the drama – based on two critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe shows he wrote – has been cathartic

A poster for the Baby Reindeer show, on which Gadd based his Netflix drama

‘When people see it, they know almost everything about me. They may judge, they may disagree, and that naturally brings a certain amount of fear, but that’s what I signed up for,” he said. The times.

He pitched the show to Netflix after combining two critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe shows, Baby Reindeer and Monkey See, Monkey Do, which dealt with his stalking and sexual assault respectively.

But the show has piqued the interest of would-be social media sleuths, who have been trying to identify both the top comedy figure who allegedly raped him and his lovelorn stalker, played by Jessica Gunning in the programme.

He has begged detectives to stop scouring the internet to identify them after theater director Sean Foley was wrongly identified as Gadd’s alleged rapist.

Richard Osman said in a recent episode of his The Rest is Entertainment that “people in the industry” know who the accused attacker is.

But the program has raised awareness about woman stalking – an issue that Gadd says is not taken seriously due to traditional assumptions about the balance of power between men and women.

The program shows how Martha’s obsession develops as she emails Gadd hundreds of times a day, shows up outside his house and harasses his family and friends.

Over a period of four and a half years, Gadd says he received 41,071 emails, 744 tweets, letters totaling 106 pages, and 350 hours of voicemail messages.

Despite this, he told the Times that police did not take his concerns seriously, despite his concerns about how far the real Martha might go in her twisted activities.

‘If a man is being stalked, it can be portrayed in films and television as something sexy, as a femme fatale who gradually becomes sinister. It does not carry as much threat of physical violence, is less common and can be downplayed,” he said.

He now says he is less likely to trust people after his negative experiences with both men and women.

Gadd concluded, “I was approaching situations with such abandon, never thinking ahead and putting my trust in people, and I got burned. Now it can be difficult to get close to people.”

Aside from the social media sleuthing, the woman believed to be the real Martha – who the Mail has declined to name – has blasted the show on social media, claiming she is in fact the victim.

But a woman who claims she was also stalked by ‘Martha’ told the Mail she immediately recognized the behavior of Gadd’s admirer, now 58.

Defense attorney Laura Wray said her jaw dropped when she watched the show and immediately recognized the woman, despite Gadd’s attempts to conceal her identity.

“I think it’s sad that she slipped through the cracks for so long when she was clearly not feeling well,” says Laura.

She is also stunned that the woman has now been identified on social media as a result of the Netflix show – despite Gadd’s insistence that he had covered up her identity.

Laura said: ‘They could have changed things without watering down the content, but they made it so realistic. They portrayed her absolutely perfectly, she is so clearly the woman who stalked me. It’s so creepy.’