Baby Reindeer lawsuit timeline: Latest update in Fiona Harvey's £125M 'long and messy' suit against Netflix and Richard Gadd
Gadd is back with Half Man, but the Baby Reindeer case could still go to court
Baby Reindeer is one of the best Netflix shows ever made, but it’s also the subject of a high-profile lawsuit from the alleged ‘real-life Martha’, Fiona Harvey.
The first episode of Baby Reindeer opened with five words: “This is a true story.”
The question is… is it? The series followed Donny (played by Gadd), a struggling comedian who’s relentlessly pursued by a woman from the bar he works in (Jessica Gunning). It was based on Gadd’s real-life stalking ordeal, as well as the sexual abuse he suffered.
The show won countless awards, including six Emmys. However, amid the acclaim, viewers’ curiosity about the real person behind Baby Reindeer’s story led to serious litigation. So, with Gadd’s Half Man coming to the BBC, let’s break down the timeline, all the way from the show’s release to where the case stands in 2026.
Baby Reindeer lawsuit: When was the show released?
Baby Reindeer felt like it emerged out of nowhere when it was released on Netflix on April 11, 2024.
Unlike Stranger Things, Wednesday, Squid Game, and other pop-culturally known Netflix shows, Baby Reindeer didn’t arrive on a tide of fanfare. But it found it.
It was a near-immediate hit, soaring to the top of Netflix’s chart (it’s been viewed over 80 million times). Word of mouth spread, and it became one of the most-talked-about, critically revered shows of 2024.
The search for Richard Gadd’s real-life stalker began
Any time there’s a drama based on a true story, people are (understandably) curious about how accurate it is, and where the real people are now. For example, when The Lady aired on ITV, viewers wanted to know more about Jane Andrews.
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While names were changed and some scenes were created for dramatic purposes, Baby Reindeer is inspired by Gadd’s real-life experiences.
So, people started speculating about the identity of not only Gadd’s stalker, but the man who assaulted him.
Sean Foley, Gadd’s friend and a theatre director, was falsely accused of being his assailant. Police investigated the reports, and Gadd also confirmed that Foley wasn’t the inspiration for the character in the show.
Gadd took to social media to ask people to cease their search. “Please don’t speculate on who the real life people could be. That’s not the point of our show,” he wrote.
Several names also started circulating online in the hunt for Gadd’s stalker. This included. Helen Fraure (who’d been convicted for harassing a barrister) and Maria Marchese, a stalker once played by Monica Dolan in ITV’s U Be Dead.
However, one name stuck: Fiona Harvey.
Baby Reindeer lawsuit: Who is Fiona Harvey?
Fiona Harvey, a 60-year-old woman from Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, is the woman accused of being Gadd’s alleged stalker.
This came after viewers discovered Harvey’s social media posts, including a number of tweets to Gadd.
“Your tweets cheer me up. I’ve not been able to get into Hawley past three Saturdays. Your timeline is good,” she wrote on June 12, 2014. In a later court filing, Gadd claimed that he first met Harvey while working in The Hawley Arms, a pub in London, in 2014.
With focus on her intensifying, Harvey wrote on Facebook: “I am not Martha, I am Fiona. I have been informed by various different sources this morning that Richard Gadd’s supporters are still attacking me online… I am Not Martha.”
However, on May 4, 2024, she also wrote: “I was in Richard Gadd company at the arms wgich he often gave me free drink [sic].
“If that aint a hint hit on me someomr please inforn me. I didn’t stalk him like he claims.”
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Harvey said she was “afraid to go outside out of fear of being attacked”.
“Some weeks I do not leave my apartment. I am suffering from, among other things, constant panic attacks, chest pains, anxiety, nightmares, depression, nervousness, stomach pains, loss of appetite, fear and insomnia,” she claimed.
What happened when Fiona Harvey went on Piers Morgan?
Harvey appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored on May 9, 2024. She claimed to have only met Gadd “two or three times”, and denied the extent of the communication Gadd has alleged.
More specifically, Gadd has claimed that she sent him 41,000 emails, 350 hours of voice messages, 744 tweets, 48 Facebook messages, and 106 letters.
“That’s simply not true. If somebody was sending somebody 41,000 emails or something, they’d be doing how many a day? Lots,” she said.
“I think there may have been a couple of emails exchanging, but that was it. Just jokey banter emails.”
As for the show’s Baby Reindeer namesake, she explained: “I had a toy reindeer and he’d shaved his head, that bit is true, and there were reindeers in the shops because it was Christmas time or something. It was a joke. So I have inadvertently penned the name of the show.”
It was an extensive interview, and Harvey addressed almost everything in the series. Crucially, when asked if she would be taking legal action, she said: “Absolutely. Against both him and Netflix.”
“It’s taken over enough of my life. I find it quite obscene. I find it horrifying, misogynistic. He’s making money out of my misery, he’s making money out of untrue facts. He’s the ultimate misogynist,” she also said.
In a later column for The Sun, Morgan suspected Harvey lied “quite a lot”.
“If her threatened legal action against Netflix and Gadd goes ahead, I suspect it will quickly emerge she did send all the emails, messages, and letters to him. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be a victim here too.”
How true is Baby Reindeer?
Harvey has emphatically denied that she stalked Gadd. She also denied ever being convicted. However, according to Gadd, it’s “pretty truthful”.
“Any time it veered too much into embellishment I would always want to pull it back. It’s extremely emotionally truthful,” he told GQ.
“Of course, this is a medium where structure is so important, you need to change things to protect people… but I like to think, artistically, that it never moved too far from the truth.
“We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognise herself. What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone.”
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos also defended Gadd and the series.
“It was no one’s intent to use a label recklessly. That is Richard’s true story. The fact that you’re watching on television says that parts of it were certainly fictionalised and dramatised. I’m surprised that it’s a continued debate,” he said.
When did Fiona Harvey file her Baby Reindeer lawsuit against Richard Gadd?
Harvey filed a lawsuit against Netflix on June 6, 2024, accusing the streaming platform of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of publicity.
However, Gadd was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states: “The lies that Defendants told about Harvey to over 50 million people worldwide include that Harvey is a twice convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison, and that Harvey sexually assaulted Gadd. Defendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money.”
“Netflix, a multi-national billion dollar entertainment streaming company did literally nothing to confirm the ‘true story’ that Gadd told. That is, it never investigated whether Harvey was convicted, a very serious misrepresentation of the facts.
“It did nothing to understand the relationship between Gadd and Harvey, if any… as a result of Defendants’ lies, malfeasance and utterly reckless misconduct, Harvey’s life had been ruined. Simply, Netflix and Gadd destroyed her reputation, her character and her life.”
How much money is Fiona Harvey seeking in her Baby Reindeer lawsuit?
When Fiona Harvey first filed her lawsuit, she was seeking $170 million (£125 million) in damages.
As reported by The Guardian, Harvey was seeking $50m for actual damages, and at least $50m in compensatory damages for “mental anguish, loss of enjoyment and loss of business”.
The lawsuit also sought at least $50m for “all profits from Baby Reindeer” and $20m for punitive damages.
Is Fiona Harvey’s Baby Reindeer lawsuit going to court?
On September 27, 2024, a judge dismissed Harvey’s claims of negligence and gross negligence and any punitive damages.
However, he allowed the defamation case to go ahead and proceed to court.
“There is a major difference between stalking and being convicted of stalking in a court of law. Likewise, there are major differences between inappropriate touching and sexual assault, as well as between shoving and gouging another’s eyes,” Judge Gary Klausner said (via The Times).
“While plaintiff’s purported actions are reprehensible, Defendants’ statements are of a worse degree and could produce a different effect in the mind of a viewer.”
James Pipe, a legal advisor, told The Mirror US that the case has “all the ingredients of a long, messy legal battle”.
A federal judge then set a trial date of May 6, 2025.
Latest update in Baby Reindeer lawsuit
Harvey’s case against Netflix has been delayed.
While it was expected to go to trial in May last year, Netflix filed an appeal, claiming that Harvey’s lawsuit “does not allege a provably false statement of fact was made about her”.
That happened in May 2025, and there haven’t been any further updates regarding the lawsuit.
Harvey’s last Facebook post was shared on October 7, 2024. “Had offer to tel my side of story. I’m not desperate for fame like wee gadd [sic],” she wrote.
Speaking ahead of Half Man’s release, Gadd was asked by The Times how he feels about Baby Reindeer after the lawsuit.
“Well, some of that’s going to be quite tricky to speak to,” he said.
“But I’m very proud of Baby Reindeer, and in all of the noise and things that happened it did a lot of good. It had a phenomenal impact.
“Referrals to abuse charities went up 53%, 47% for stalking charities. I’m proud people saw it, related and realised they need help. That led to positive change. So there’s a lot I’m super-proud of.”
Read more: Half Man: Richard Gadd’s harrowing and disturbing new BBC drama is even better than Baby Reindeer
