Baby Reindeer creator is provoking his stalker

[jengachampion]

SPOILERS AHEAD
I’ll preface this by saying I had a male stalker for 7 years. I moved, changed jobs, and deleted all social media in that time. I’m also a survivor of SA, as well as assault after being spiked, similar to RG in the show.

It completely baffles me that he would completely replicate his stalker down to physical likeness, occupation, accent, exact correspondences and references like hanging curtains.

He is clearly not too worried about people finding the real person, as well as her potentially contacting him again.

If it were me telling my story, I would change all identifying details of both of us, because I would NEVER want to go through it again. RG telling his story this way is hugely weird to me and really speaks to the theme of mutual obsession he hints at in the show.

1. People went through his twitter feed
2. They found recognisable tweets from her and made tik toks
3. It was then not hard to find the same woman had previous allegations (published under two different surnames) according to articles printed in the national press
4. It couldn't be a composite/taking info from other cases, as many details in the drama and in real life were very similar
5. It couldn't be a coincidence as the person named/person on FB/person on X/were all linked through tweets/biographical information. Would have needed to be the longest long con in the history of the world ever.

I think they genuinely underestimated that many (including myself, see next post) are happy doing deep dives into things. I doubt they realised the extent to which ordinary procrastinating people have time to wade through threads. Plus the news articles (there are at least two) go back two decades so would not usually come up without some digging/knowing what to look for.

Her reactions to the series have been a little erratic, mentioning

1. men pick on women on Facebook
2. two personal attacks from trans/gay men she has reported to police
3. claiming she was not who they were looking for
4. real men don't threaten/intimidate
5. she was making a list of gay men attacking women
6. Gadd is not known to her but she did know he was a jobbing barman in Camden (Hawley arms)
7. She does not know the "fat, ugly actress" perceived to be playing her
8. The pub where she used to live was known for drug and rape allegations
9. She has received death threats
10. Claiming she does not know Gadd although calls him a "failed comedian" with a "sorry little life story" heard on a Sophie Hagen podcast. (Aside: I listened to it. It was dull)
11. She has spoken to journalists but alleges Gadd has lawyers preventing printing anything about "precious Richard"/has threatened at least one publication
12. Gadd has alleged his father was falsely called a paedophile
13. Gadd has put many of his family on the net
14. She doesn't believe Gadd was raped as he didn't report it
15. She mentions talking to the journos again
16. Criticises Gadd's theatre course
17. Criticises the Camden pub's manager
18. Slates Abby Clancy's brother, who was also bartending there
19. Alleges Gadd was involved in drugs
20. Alleges that Gadd borrowed money from the pub owner
21. Alleges Gadd has learning difficulties, is mentally ill and has HIV
22. States Gadd has told stories about her
23. States she is not Martha, neither fantasises nor invents things
24. She was making a list of those sending threats/unwelcome posts
25. Gadd wants publicity
26. His show is misogynistic
27. If he approached her, he'd be arrested
28. He has been obsessed with her since 2012
29. He used to plead poverty and is mean
30. She met him fleetingly
31. Says he was scared of Crouch and Clancy's influence/£ so never challenged her brother John (fellow bartender)
32. Says Gadd has contravened the hate crime and equality act
33. That he is lying/is cowardly/is bullying and should have written about John or his colleague Jimmy being arrested
34. Feels bullied and has been subject to crap tabloid reporters
35. That Gadd is a theatre studies drop-out
36. That he has slept with rent boy barristers
37. That he is a Mummy's boy/father paid for special school
38. That she and her friends don't live their lives online and it's all been disturbing to read
39. That Martha is fictional hyperbole
40. That she has had vile false things said about her

THE HAWLEY ARMS, London - Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews - Tripadvisor
In other news, pub opens at twelve!

Wow, she knows a lot about him for somebody who met him fleetingly.

It's a shame that nobody advised her to stay off the internet for a while. I don't know her name, but seems like she's giving up the dots for internet sleuths to ''join up''. The show was was excellent, loved it, but somebody behind the scenes should have reached out to her to advise her to stay off the internet and not respond to any fishing expeditions to find the real Martha.

@JojoSeawitchHasBeenABadBadGirl

I think they genuinely underestimated that many (including myself, see next post) are happy doing deep dives into things. I doubt they realised the extent to which ordinary procrastinating people have time to wade through threads. Plus the news articles (there are at least two) go back two decades so would not usually come up without some digging/knowing what to look for.

I agree. This is my point. All the anger that is directed at him for outing her is misplaced. I don't think he did it on purpose and I can't imagine Netflix wanted it to happen either.

It only looks like she was outed very recently.

Have the tweets and messages from ten years ago been deleted now?

No idea.
I think the only error made is the insistence that they had chosen an actress who was different in appearance, changed many details, she wouldn't recognise herself etc
You don't say that in interviews, when it is patently false.

I don’t understand any of the criticism of Richard Gadd. No-one appears to doubt that he has experienced massive traumas but he appears to be criticised because of

i)how he responded to trauma ie. he’s not sympathetic enough and “he enjoys drama, abuse and attention.”

ii) Being untrustworthy because he showed the the complexity, flaws and thought processes in the way he portrayed his experience in BR. Someone make this one make sense - he’d be more credible if he wrote himself as a “perfect victim”? Even if thats not authentic real life.

iii) Choosing to speak about trauma. What does that say to other victims? What if this has helped him process things and supported his healing?

iii) His choice to make art from his experience when that is literally his career.

iv) Him seeking recognition and fame again literally an aspect oh his career.

V) Not protecting his stalker and rapist sufficiently. The stalker has outed herself “Richard Gadd who I don’t know wrote a programme about me”. What she has done before and after knowing him are a matter of public record/ people can make judgements based on what comes from her own mouth and hand.

Vi) Not using wording deemed sufficiently emphatic to exonerate someone else falsely accused.

Viii) enjoying the success of the show

Enough!

I loved Baby Reindeer and hope it gets all the awards. None of it’s my world and it challenged me and made me reflect a lot - how the actor reenacted his violence and abuse, how trauma from different events explained some of his instincts and behaviours, clearly unhealthy drug use, how he wasn’t confident in his sexuality. I’d never heard of Richard Gadd before but he’s extremely talented. He also seems human and open about his vulnerability I hope he goes far and has good people and support around him. Everyone deserves happiness.

I wonder how that came up though. It would have been an odd thing to mention out of context and if he were asked directly it would have been impossible for him to give an acceptable answer. '
He would have been slated if he had said " Oh, yes the actor looks like the woman that stalked me'

It's a show on the telly. People are allowed to express their opinions on it (as you indeed have) so no need for your 'enough!' Instructions.

Oh give over!

'Give over' what? You've written a lengthy post on everything that you approve of yet think you can say 'enough' to those who have criticised it?

I can't see how this show helps anyone who has been featured, quite the opposite infact. Including Gadd himself.

Also, why on earth did he keep trying to be a comedian when he clearly didn't have the talent for it?!

Give over telling me not to express my views on a thread because I disagree with other views on the thread.

I won’t respond to you again because it’s derailing and I have no interest in you whatsoever.

Enough!

'Give over telling me not to express my views on a thread because I disagree with other views on the thread.'

Well ditto. It is ironic to write an essay on your own views.. whilst telling everyone else not to share their own views .

I've sympathy for what Gadd experienced but he clearly should have changed more details than he did to stop the current online hysteria regarding those included. And again, 'comedian'?

That poster wasn’t telling you not to express your views. She was telling you not to tell others not to express theirs re: “enough!”.

GQ
A caption reads ‘This is a true story’. Were there parts of this you had to adapt?
This is a medium where structure is so important, you need to change things to protect people.

Your stalker might watch Baby Reindeer. What do you think she’ll make of it?
I honestly couldn’t speak as to whether she would watch it. Her reactions to things varied so much that I almost couldn't predict how she’d react to anything. She was quite an idiosyncratic person. We’ve gone to such great lengths to disguise her to the point that I don’t think she would recognise herself. What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone.

Guardian
Names and identifying details have been changed – Gadd plays the lead, but his character is called Donny – while chronology and some events have been “tweaked slightly to create dramatic climaxes”, he says. “It’s very emotionally true, obviously: I was severely stalked and severely abused. But we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it’s based on.”

Guardian when the play came out 5 years ago
It’s his frustration at how stalking is policed, he says, that compelled Gadd to bring his story to the stage. He can’t have done so lightly. As the show makes clear, Martha – while now, finally, restrained from contacting the artist himself – is still at large, and until recently has been harassing his friends and family. Might not publicising the story risk escalating her activities?
“I have to admit that it hasn’t,” he says, cautiously. “Maybe seeing this in the press has made her think twice about her behaviour.”

‘It’s his story. He can tell it if he wants to 🤷‍♀️’

Im going to keep an eye out for ‘Martha’s Story’ later this year

I never felt sorry for him.
He didn't tell the police anything for ages, and even when he did, he omitted to tell them everything.

On the day that Tessa Jowell died, the real Martha tweeted about two hundred times, saying how much she hated her.

The real Martha also has a deep hatred for Muslims.

She likes Farage,Trump and Johnson.

She's is a Brexiteer and she despises Saddiq Khan and Humza Yousef.

...so? Not saying I agree with those views, but it doesn't negate 'poetic license' taken with her life and dangerous things people assume are facts when they aren't to profit from

@TheShellBeach
I never felt sorry for him.
He didn't tell the police anything for ages, and even when he did, he omitted to tell them everything.

The guy was raped. How can you not feel sorry for him?
You can dislike people and feel sorry for them.

Imagine the uproar if you said you didn't feel sorry for a female victim of rape.

I'm not sure the relevance of mentioning that he didn't tell the police everything. Look how many woman victims of domestic abuse go on to defend their partners even after having reported them to the police?

I was talking about the stalking.
He never reported the alleged rape to the police.

It sounds like she needs mental health care, not turned into a global TV bogeywoman.

Yes.

I'm so torn. He has the right to tell his dreadful story both as a victim and as an artist.

But:
he must have known that there would be a concerted effort to identify her, and that for eg her tweets about/to him were still findable.

And:
As I said above, his (admirable) refusal to present himself as a perfect victim has led to such an extreme level of self-exposure that it feels to me like a form of masochism - a desire to have one's degradation (by oneself and others) be witnessed and reprised.
And it also puts him in renewed physical and psychological danger from both stalker and rapist.
Therefore it's a continuation of the trauma-catalysed risk-taking behaviour that he demonstrated throughout the show.

On the other hand, the self-exposure was necessary in order to put himself beyond criticism - neither of them can say anything he hasn't already revealed about himself. And the extreme publicness of the self-exposure also protects him from physical harm, because all eyes will now be on both stalker and rapist. So you could read the whole thing as pretty clever (and like a plot from a psychological thriller - touché, abusers).

I also find his public insistence that she's a victim too quite interesting. If he really believes that (which I think is moot), it's an odd decision to re-victimise her.

I think he must on some level know that he will have effectively destroyed both those people (and that there must be a possibility of a really serious outcome for one or both of them) Some might believe that this is what they deserve - but I don't believe that he thinks that. I do think, though, that he cannot resist the acclaim and validation that he knew was likely to come once the series was commissioned. He just can't resist it - either as the result of some pre-existing weakness, or as a result of the trauma. He knows it carries huge risks but he just can't walk away, it's an absolute addiction.

So in a sense, making the series is another repetition, on a much grander scale - ie a repetition of the (to many of us) incomprehensible near-final scene when he walks back into the orbit of his abuser, and agrees to be a part of the reprise of 'Cotton Mouth'.

It's all very complicated, and compelling and fascinating and awful.

Just saw this posted from this morning but it's been removed so who knows what happened there