TV

Richard Gadd responds to Baby Reindeer fan 'speculation' on the real Martha Scott

Richard Gadd responds to Baby Reindeer fan 'speculation' on the real Martha Scott
Baby Reindeer trailer
Netflix

Richard Gadd, the star and creator of Baby Reindeer, which recounts his real-life dealings with a stalker as well as the sexual assault he experienced from another individual, has urged viewers to stop speculating on who the actual people are from the Netflix series.

All the characters in the show, including Gadd, are portrayed under different names from their real-life counterparts, including the stalker, who in Baby Reindeer is called Martha Scott.

Online sleuths on TikTok and X/Twitter believe they have found the real-life woman's various social media accounts and have begun to relate certain posts to incidents from the show.

However, Gadd who had purposefully disguised the identities of the actual people involved in the story has intervened to plead with people to cease their investigations.

On his Instagram Stories, the comedian wrote: "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."

Richard Gadd/ Instagram


Sean Foley is a British director, writer, comedian and actor who has worked on several successful comedy stage shows, including the long-running The Play What I Wrote. He's been inaccurately identified as the real Darrien O’Connor from the show.

In an interview with GQ, Gadd explained that he never shared his stalker's name with the press stating that they went to "great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognise herself."

He added: "What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone."

Despite Martha being arrested in Baby Reindeer it remains unclear what happened to the real stalker, with Gadd telling The Times that she hadn't been imprisoned and he "didn't want to throw someone who was that level of mentally unwell in prison" and that the situation was "resolved."

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