Baby Reindeer: Fiona Harvey admits she inspired name of Netflix show

Fiona Harvey has admitted that she inspired the name of Baby Reindeer in her interview with Piers Morgan, The Real Martha Uncensored.

Tonight, the 58-year-old law graduate from Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, appeared for her first TV interview since the release of Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd’s series based on his experiences being targeted by a serial stalker.

Although Gadd asked fans to stop speculating about the characters’ real-life counterparts, Harvey was soon tracked down and accused of being the real Martha (played by Jessica Gunning in the show). 

In the interview, she denies numerous allegations but does confirm that the title of the show is based on a toy reindeer she used to own. 

YouTube/Uncensored

“I had a toy reindeer and he’d shaved his head,” she says. “That bit is true. And there were reindeers in the shops, it was Christmas time or something. It was a joke.”

Harvey is then asked about the “hang your curtains” comment from the show, in which Gadd’s character Donny – wanting to fit in with his peers – banters with Martha and says, “I’ll hang your curtains.”

“This, I think, was a Hawley Arms joke, and a lot of sexual innuendo,” she replies, referring to the Camden pub Gadd used to work at. Piers then asks, “He did say that?” To which she says, “Yes.”

Harvey is also confronted about the barrage of messages she is said to have sent Gadd at the time: 41,071 emails and 350 hours of voicemail messages, as well as 744 tweets, 106 pages of letters, and 46 Facebook messages. 

Piers reiterates these figures to Harvey but she denies them. According to her accounts, she sent him “only a handful of emails, tweeted him around 18 times, never sent him Facebook messages, and sent one letter.”

The editor’s notes for The Real Martha Uncensored states: “Netflix and Clerkenwell Films were approached to respond to the allegations made in this interview. They chose not to comment.”