Comedian Richard Gadd
The true story behind the Netflix hit “Baby Reindeer”
Richard Gadd as his alter ego Donny Dunn in the Netflix series “Baby Reindeer”
© Netflix
The Netflix series “Baby Reindeer” about a stalker and her victim who struggles with sexual abuse is based on true events. Author and protagonist Richard Gadd lived the nightmare.
The Scot Richard Gadd processed his personal experiences in “Reindeer Baby”, he made his stalking experience public for the first time in 2019 at the well-known Fringe Festival in Edinburgh in the form of a one-man show. The play won several awards and even made it onto the London stage – always with Gadd aka Donny Dunn in the lead role. He also plays himself for the Netflix version; his stalker, called Martha, is portrayed in the show by the English actress Jessica Gunning.
Martha shows up one day at the pub where Donny works and looks so pitifully miserable that Donny spontaneously buys her a cup of tea. A fatal mistake, because after that the mentally ill woman wouldn’t leave his side for years, bombarding him with emails and voice messages and threatening him and his family.
“Baby Reindeer” on Netflix: Complex, dark, touching
It all happened that way, even though Martha was anonymized as much as possible in the script. Another change: Gadd had already addressed the story of sexual abuse in the play “Monkey See Monkey Do” in 2016 and was also honored for it. “Baby Reindeer” on Netflix is now a mix of both. “It’s all 100% true in terms of feelings, if that makes sense. Everything comes from situations I’ve experienced and from real people I’ve met. But for legal and artistic reasons, it couldn’t be exactly the truth ” Gaad said in a recent interview about the veracity of the series.
Streaming tips
From “Money Heist” to “Lupin”: The most exciting heist series on Netflix and Co.
It was difficult to delve back into the worst time of his life, of course it did something to him. But he can also see positive things in it. “When I look back on it, talking about the sexual abuse I experienced was more helpful than any therapy,” says Gaad. Maybe that’s why the 34-year-old portrays himself so honestly and shamelessly. The fascination of the series is also due to the fact that the view of Martha is often empathetic and Gadd admits that she is partly to blame. At times he continued to encourage Martha, feeling flattered, even though he knew she was sick and could be dangerous. It was months before he even reported the matter to the police, let alone told the whole truth.
Part of the story is that fans of the series went online to search for the real Martha and the real rapist Gadds. The speculation became so wild that there were threats to people close to Gadd – and he had to explicitly ask them to stop. And with that, “Reindeer Baby” has once again shown how complex things like trauma and stalking can be.
Sources: “Variety”, “GQ Magazine”