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Netflix is seeing another of its offerings reach widespread success, as Baby Reindeer rockets to the top of “must watch” lists and gathers fresh fans with each new viewing.
The haunting story, based around the real-life stalking, harassment, and assault of comedian Richard Gadd, is massively popular among viewers, and seemingly gets more popular with each passing day. It sports a whopping 98 percent Tomatometer score, a slightly lower but still impressive 83 percent audience score, and reviews for the limited series applaud its “outstanding” balance of comedy, trauma, and disturbing reality, with particular praise heaped on the “devastating,” “complicated,” and truly “outstanding” delivery of a story that’s complex enough to pull any kind of viewer in.
Its made all the better due to its connections to reality. The story is dramatized, to be sure, but the core of its telling is rooted in Richard Gadd’s real experiences. The titular character is based around him, and many of the events that unfold across the show’s seven episodes came from his real-world experiences. Its been a few years since the real Martha set her sights on Gadd, but there’s no amount of distance that will properly soften the harrowing events he endured.
When did the events of Baby Reindeer happen IRL?
There are plenty of story inclusions in Baby Reindeer that stretch the truth that inspired this gripping story, but there’s more truth than fabrication in the series. Richard Gadd really is a comedian, he really was ferociously stalked by a female fan, and down to the barest details, he carried his captivating real-world story into a fresh medium with the Netflix release.
The events that inspired Baby Reindeer occurred back in 2015, when Gadd was struggling to find success as a comedian and writer and making ends meet by working at a bar. Just like the events of the series, he took pity on a woman who said she couldn’t afford a drink, and in the process invited a stalker into his life.
That single act of kindness sparked a four-year series of events that saw Gadd stalked for years, receiving a total of “41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemail, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters,” according to People.
Gadd’s found the biggest success of his career thus far by sharing the harsh and sometimes harrowing realities of his real life with an audience. In the process, he’s finally found a level of peace, noting to the Times that taking ownership of the story was healing.
“I couldn’t keep it all in any more,” he said. “Making shows about it was all I had. I was shell-shocked, but by performing it you gain ownership. When you keep it inside for so long it becomes gigantic and insurmountable, but through performance, you can somehow go outside yourself, observe and process it.”
Gadd is still reeling from the massive success of his Netflix release, even as a woman claiming to be the real-life Martha contemplates legal action. It likely won’t take her anywhere, given the steps Gadd took to keep her identity a secret, but regardless of her thoughts on his interpretation, Gadd’s story is clearly connecting with audiences.