Baby Reindeer is all we can talk about right now, and one of the main questions we all have is – who is the real Martha from Baby Reindeer?
The groundbreaking new Netflix series from comedian Richard Gadd is a fictionalised retelling of his own deeply uncomfortable experience with a female stalker. It's bold, complex, darkly funny and probably one of the best new offerings from Netflix this year.
What's more, Gadd's own commentary on the character of Martha (and the real-life Martha) as a victim of mental health issues rather than a dark criminal is thought-provoking and refreshing.
The Netflix hit takes inspiration from Gadd's real life.
Although Baby Reindeer is based on Gadd's own life, the story has been tweaked and dramatised for TV. In the show, we meet Martha (Jessica Gunning), a frazzled lawyer who happens to sit down for a drink at the bar where Gadd's character, Donny, is working. The pair strike up a flirty friendship. Donny can't help but feel a little sorry for her. However, things soon spiral out of control when Martha's obsession with Donny turns into hundreds of hours of voicemails and tens of thousands of emails.
Naturally, viewers of the show are keen to know a little more about the true story that inspired the gripping series. So — who is the real Martha from Baby Reindeer?
Who is the real Martha from Baby Reindeer?
Gadd has remained pretty confidential about his own real-life stalker. In fact, he has been extremely careful not to reveal her real name to the press.
“We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognise herself,” he explained to GQ. “What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone.”
However, as he told The Times, her stalking habits were pretty similar to Martha's in the show: “At first, everyone at the pub thought it was funny that I had an admirer,” he said. “Then she started to invade my life, following me, turning up at my gigs, waiting outside my house, sending thousands of voicemails and emails.”
In the show, Martha ends up imprisoned — we don't know whether the real-life Martha also ended up in prison.
The twisted, psychologically complex finale explained.
One other similarity between the real-life Martha and the fictionalised one? Gadd sees both as victims rather than culprits.
"I can’t emphasise enough how much of a victim she is in all this,” said Gadd to the Independent of his real-life stalker. “When we think of stalkers, we always think of films like Misery and Fatal Attraction, where the stalker is a monstrous figure in the night down an alleyway. But usually, it’s a prior relationship or someone you know or a work colleague. Stalking and harassment is a form of mental illness. It would have been wrong to paint her as a monster, because she’s unwell, and the system has failed her.”
Baby Reindeer episode 6 is dedicated to Harrison.
Where is the real Martha from Baby Reindeer now?
As the real Martha's identity isn't known, it's unclear where she is now. However, in an interview with The Times, Richard said that while he had “mixed feelings about it” it was “resolved” and he "didn’t want to throw someone who was that level of mentally unwell in prison".
This is echoed in another interview with Radio Times in which he says:
"What motivated me to write it is when I was going through it, I was like, 'This is bonkers. How long is it going to go on for? How hard it is to get it all sorted? Why isn't there help for her?'
He added, "When I was getting stalked... I saw someone who was unwell, needed help, was quite vulnerable. Stalking is a mental illness and it comes from a sort of fantasy addiction of some kind, this idea that this person is the answer to all your problems, so you'll hear only what you want to hear, disregard the rest."
Richard also told The Guardian in 2019 that to deem Martha an "awful person" and him as a "victim" would be "unfair".
He admitted "I did loads of things wrong and made the situation worse. I wasn’t a perfect person [back then], so there’s no point saying I was."
With that said, while we don't have a way of knowing where the real Martha is now, we do know that Richard feels like the situation has been “resolved”.
The show portray's one man's experience with a female stalker.
What happened to Martha in Baby Reindeer?
While we don't know where the real Martha currently is, in Baby Reindeer Martha's character received a nine-month prison sentence and five-year restraining order for stalking Donny.
The Baby Reindeer finale sees Martha arrested after sending a voicemail threatening that one day she could stab someone, with it being heavily suggested that she's referring to Donny and his family. Donny then goes on to state that Martha was charged with three counts of stalking and harassment and he attended her plea hearing and faced her across the courtroom.
Martha then pleads guilty to the charges, referring to Donny as her little reindeer, with it later being revealed via a voicemail that the nickname stemmed from the fact that he reminded her of a cuddly reindeer toy she'd had as a child that provided comfort during tough times.
Ultimately, the restraining order was issues the same day as the hearing, though while the show clearly resolved stalking in this way, Jessica Gunning who plays Martha told Radio Times “It's not a success story, there's no victory there. That's why that stage direction is so amazing – there's no jump scare like, 'Ha ha, got you'. It's two lost people and that's captured so well”.
Baby Reindeer is available to watch on Netflix now.
"That's not the point of our show."
