A woman who has been accused of being the ‘real-life’ version of Martha in the hit show Baby Reindeer has spoken out about the accusations, calling herself a “victim” and claiming that she has been barely sleeping due to death threats on the internet.
The Scottish woman, who remains unnamed, has been contacted by armchair detectives who watched the Netflix drama and spoke to the Daily Record about the situation.
“I’m the victim here, not Richard Gadd,” she said. “I’ve had death threats as a result of his show despite the fact that a lot of the things he claimed are just not true. Someone online said, ‘If I find you I will kill you’. A guy in North Carolina said that he and other people were going to stalk me like I am supposed to have stalked Gadd. I got two hours of sleep last night. I thought, what if his supporters really do things like that?”
The woman, who lives in London and has a degree in law from Aberdeen University, added: “I have not watched Baby Reindeer but I have seen various things. I was in Richard Gadd’s company on occasions but I didn’t stalk him like he claims. His story is that this is a gross intrusion into my privacy. I haven’t seen him for 12 years.
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“I read that he had written that show for the festival four or five years ago and I thought, ‘Oh my God’. This weekend I Googled and stories about Richard Gadd and Baby Reindeer were all over the place in flashing lights. I had been aware four or five years ago about him calling the character Martha and I saw the photo of the actress.”
She added that she doesn’t think she looks like Jessica Gunning, who plays Martha, and claimed that she was “being persecuted like Johnny Depp”. She added that she wouldn’t be silenced in regards to the matter and that she wanted “nothing to do” with Richard.
Richard has been vocal about his concern for ‘Martha’, telling Variety: “I have a bit of empathy overdrive sometimes. But it’s not like anything I’ve seen on television before. Stalking usually is depicted as someone who is kind of evil, whereas I felt like there was a vulnerable person who genuinely couldn’t stop, who for whatever reason had believed the reality that was inside her head and no matter what couldn’t change from that.
“I mean, it is a mental illness and I wanted to portray that. I did see someone who I felt sorry for.”
He has also asked fans of the show to cease speculating who the real-life counterparts of ‘Martha’ and ‘Darrian’ (the man who sexually assaulted him during his early 20s), were after one of his colleagues was accused of being the man in question.
The statement read: “Hi everyone, people I love, have worked with, and admire (including Sean Foley) are unfairly getting caught up in speculation. Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show. Lots of love, Richard.”
