Netflix\u00a0was sued on Thursday for at least $170 million by a Scottish woman who said she was defamed over her portrayal as a stalker in the hit mini-series \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d<\/p>\n
The plaintiff Fiona Harvey has publicly claimed to be the inspiration behind the character Martha, played by actress Jessica Gunning, who shares a physical resemblance and like her is a lawyer in London.<\/p>\n
But in a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, Harvey said Netflix and \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d creator Richard Gadd went too far by suggesting through the show, which calls itself a \u201ctrue story,\u201d that she was a twice-convicted stalker who had been sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n
Harvey denied having stalked Gadd, who on the show plays a fictional version of himself named Donny Dunn, or having been convicted or imprisoned.<\/p>\n
But she said many people couldn\u2019t tell the difference, and thousands of Reddit and TikTok users talk about her as the \u201creal\u201d Martha.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefendants told these lies, and never stopped, because it was a better story than the truth, and better stories made money,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Netflix, in response to the lawsuit, said it intended to \u201cdefend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd\u2019s right to tell his story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit seeks at least $50 million each for actual damages, compensatory damages including mental anguish and profits, plus at least $20 million of punitive damages.<\/p>\n
Harvey sued two days after Netflix\u00a0settled\u00a0a defamation lawsuit by former prosecutor Linda Fairstein over her portrayal in \u201cWhen They See Us,\u201d a 2019 series about the Central Park Five rape case three decades earlier.<\/p>\n
Netflix agreed to move a disclaimer that some characters may have been altered for dramatic purposes to the start of episodes from the closing credits. It also agreed to donate $1 million to a non-profit that helps free wrongfully convicted people.<\/p>\n
The case is Harvey v Netflix Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 24-04744.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Netflix\u00a0was sued on Thursday for at least $170 million by a Scottish woman who said she was defamed over her portrayal as a stalker in the hit mini-series \u201cBaby Reindeer\u201d The plaintiff Fiona Harvey has publicly claimed to be the inspiration behind the character Martha, played by actress Jessica Gunning, who shares a physical resemblance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":34077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34078,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34076\/revisions\/34078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}