To think that everything Fiona Harvey said in her Piers Morgan interview was a lie? [Edit by MNHQ]

yep. i probably have a few - 2 gmail - one normal for friends and one more professional name one for CV's. then a few connected to my webprovider (one used for forums like this, one for utilities etc). And an old yahoo and hotmail.
Then a work one!

I spoke to a friend today about this, we studied defamation together. Should piers have interviewed her? is she CLEARLY vunerable - well we don't know what she has been doing for last 20 years - is she working in a role or is she not working. If she works full time, its hard to argue she is vunerable and mentally unwell. But we don't actually know what she does (and weird it wasn't mentioned)

She reminds me so much of a guy I used to know. Major narcissist- the most extreme Iv ever met! Talking through a tangled web of lies- they almost convince themselves are true, grandiose, unpleasant, arrogant & belittling when confronted by evidence to their bad behaviour.

Spot on.

Everyone who even watched the Piers Morgan interview should be ashamed.

God all mighty. The world is in chaos with war, climate change and a spiralling population but what are people obsessing over? A furore over a mentally unstable woman and a TV program which was all created by massive corporations to make money out of the gormless general public.

Fucking insane.

Just watched.
I have to say it was uncomfortable. She kept deflecting certain things.
For example, she probably doesn't gave a law degree.
She doesn't have a boyfriend.
She did probably bombard him with emails.

But that still doesn't make it right. Stalking is grim and by the emails alone she was guilty of it to an extent. And if she was a stalker, surely it's dangerous to dig that deep into it? Maybe she's an actor as well and all part of the 'meta' reindeer world? Haha.

Gadd comes off awfully in his early standup, it is really misogynistic. I guess its that whole blurring of fiction and reality. Imagine if you got written about by someone as this character, it must be very weird.

I think the original drama should have concealed the original identity far more successfully - but it was originally a stand up show and then a theatre show - that must make it more difficult to change once it's succeeded in those areas. What is significant to me is that the power of the drama appears to be built on her particular character and the way the illness affects her. It seems to be a unique and highly identifiable portrait.
Hugely questionable in ethical terms IMO.

It's Netflix so it will have been lawyered - but maybe not lawyered to the level of the implications following the global success it has become.
I think the production is very vulnerable to legal action and morgan as well - I don't believe interviews should be broadcast if interviewees are suspected of being very unwell.
The problem is that there are two 'victims' so it's problematic in that sense.
I would have thought she would a case for defamation.

I have no interest in watching someone with serious mental health issues unravel on TV. What a low point for society.

This woman clearly isn't "lying" in the normal sense of the word, and she is in no way prepared for or capable of dealing with being goaded on live TV like some sort of freak show.

What annoys me most is that it will likely be the same vultures who are participating in this who will be the ones posting #bekind or #mentalhealthawareness in a few months time if this person or someone else comes to harm as a result?

Shame on Piers Morgan for doing this and shame on everyone else who's jumping on the bandwagon.

I thought Baby Reindeer was a brilliant albeit disturbing work of art, and a tale that was entitled to be told, sensitively and honestly. I think the very fact that people are trying to uncover and hound this woman means they fundamentally missed the point Richard Gadd was trying to make in the show in the first place!

Yes this is exactly what I've thought and said since I watched it and it all started ro unravel.

I couldn't find any evidence of this.

She's a convicted criminal. She already had a conviction (and was jailed) for very serious stalking offences before she ever met Richard Gadd. She is very unwell and a complete fantasist.

Of course she is vulnerable. Of course she is being exploited. But she is still a massive liar, extremely disturbed and very unstable and has very little control over her anger. She's not an innocent woman who just happened to have a crush on a comedian. She's Annie Wilkes from Misery.

I’ve just checked (I’m at home on sick leave - I don’t have stalking tendencies 😅). At about 1.5 minutes in, typed on the screen is “This is a true story”.

Im not watching much more, but I can’t see anywhere where it says it’s based on real events or fiction. Maybe in the small print or at the end?

Edit:

The description says: adapted from his award winning play, based on his own harrowing experience.

It does feel like revenge. With a sprinkling of hypocrisy and misogyny.

You can be middle class while being poor

I think Harvey is lying about a great many things, including stalking and harrassing Gadd. Gadd also clearly lied about making her "unidentifiable" and the queasy mix of what he says is true and what is made up (including a conviction and prison sentence) sits very ill.

In the middle of this, we have someone who (apparently factually) is a rapist wanderign around unchallenged.

Yes.

I think it’s all wrong.

If it’s true, then she needs help.
If it’s true, then there’s a rapist out there who's hardly being mentioned.
If it’s true then, rather than profiting from her mental illness, he could be campaigning for other things (like taking her to court).

It feels very much like revenge and that makes me feel uncomfortable regardless of whether she should be convicted for what she’s allegedly done.

I think that even if they had said "based on real events" it would still have been incredibly irresponsible. You can not make a television programme that accuses someone in real life of crimes they did not commit.

He could have just said it was a work of fiction, but they knew that the hook was "the real life unhinged female". They did this deliberately. Knowing that the public would speculate and knowing it could cause devastation to anyone caught up in it.

I think she's not a mentally robust person and the PM interview is unkind and uncomfortable. I think the series itself was really well written, acted and fascinating, and not really unsympathetic to the Martha character. Writers often take inspiration from their own experiences so there is nothing wrong with that. I think it's likely he embellished several things to make the series, artistic licence. The issue is that Netflix say it is strongly based on true experiences. If they had only said "inspired by", she may have gone under the radar, which would have been so much better.

I think she’s probably a sociopath. He shouldn’t have interviewed her at all.

So then the story is not true as was very clearly claimed, but based on real events . I think that is problematic and needs addressing.

In a way I think that it is irrelevant:

They said it was a true story, not based on real life events*. It is proven that it is not true and he said he changed things (she did not go to prison, for example) (edited to say that I messed up the bold words!)

*He said he changed enough to make her not recognisable, yet it clearly is referring to her (taking into account what she said about the name - reindeer)

*She is now being harassed. If it’s true, then she needs help and no one deserves harassment like this

*There are also men now being being accused (of the rape), this goes beyond just her

I find all of this very problematic. Regardless of whether she's telling the truth or lying.

I don't think she has though, I think that much is true.

Gadd did say that part was made up.

I think she has done some utterly dreadful things, but I don't think she has ever been held to account.

Jesus, that is chilling.

Was she working back then? How did she support herself?

Because she sounds entirely incapable of holding down a job.

@ShortFatHouseElf Oh, is it?

I've never heard of that programme.

But she has written on her Facebook page a few times and she just says "BBC Breaking News"....so I'm not sure

@MinervaMcGonagallsCat thanks for replying.

That's what I suspected. So her claims of Laura Wray "headhunting" her from another film is just nonsense.

She really is so full of her own self importance.

I can understand why would hide if you saw her in the street. She is a very dangerous woman.