‘Your life won’t be worth living’: Baby Reindeer’s real-life Martha accused of sending Keir Starmer 276 ‘explicit’ emails
The emails were signed off with "sent from my iPhone", just like Martha on the show
Fiona Harvey, believed to be the real-life inspiration for the character of Martha in hit Netflix show Baby Reindeer, allegedly sent Labour’s Keir Starmer 276 abusive emails while living in his constituency.
Baby Reindeer is part-based on creator, writer and lead actor Richard Gadd’s real-life experience of being stalked. It follows a young man, Donny, being aggressively pursued by an older woman, Martha.
In a recent Piers Morgan Uncensored interview, Harvey said the character of Martha is based on her and admitted to knowing Gadd, but denied stalking him. “They have billed it as a true story, and so has he, and it’s not,” she claimed. “He is lying and they [Netflix] are lying.”
Morgan later said in an interview on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “She has never been to court over this, let alone plead guilty, and has never been to prison.”
However, The Sun has now alleged that Harvey subjected Labour leader Starmer to a swathe of emails similar in tone to the messages sent by Martha to Donny in the show.
“Your life won’t be worth living”
Harvey, a Scottish lawyer, is accused of sending the messages over an eight-month period while living in London in 2020. In one, she apparently called him a “stupid little boy.”
The 58-year-old is also accused of calling Starmer’s wife “ugly” and using a disabled slur to describe her. The Sun has said it can’t publish many of the emails as they’re so ‘explicit’ in nature.
One email published by the outlet reads: “You get elected leader of. Non party and within two minutes I get an email calling me a racist from the housing ombudsman I’ve already complained about you to the standards commissioner who guess what also does nothing. See from now on il l complain about the slightest little thing [sic].
“Your life won’t be worth living.”
Each email was signed off with ‘sent from my iPhone, as per Martha in the show. However, they were reportedly sent from a desktop computer.
Starmer has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015.
The Metropolitan Police are reportedly aware of the emails. A source told the outlet: “There was no suggestion of any physical danger. But the murders of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess are a stark reminder of the dangers faced by MPs.
“It was felt that the police should be made aware of the large volume of emails so the individual could receive help and stop the nuisance messages.”
In a Facebook post shared since The Sun’s report, Harvey reportedly said: “Once I have a legal team in place, I expect that they will make a further statement setting out the next steps that I will be taking to deal with everything that has happened as a direct result of the dishonest and false picture of me painted in baby reindeer [sic].”
She added: “No one in the right mind would use their real name email to threaten a MP. And you think the police wouldn’t have been contacted and ip tracked remember gadd said I been arrested and I’m known to police. Get real people it’s fake news or someone not mentioning no name s set me up again. Ill be suing [sic].”
“It’s even more close to the truth than I’d care to admit” – Richard Gadd on Baby Reindeer
Speaking in a recent interview with Attitude, Gadd reflected on how much of Baby Reindeer was based on reality.
“It is, as it says on the tin, a true story,” he said. “A lot of this stuff happened to me. We’ve obviously had to go to great lengths to protect people’s identities. But it’s probably even more close to the truth than I’d care to admit in a lot of ways. I went through all these things.”
“My twenties were a severe period of time, so Donny and me are very close,” the 35-year-old went on. “But it is a performance. I’m not like that guy anymore at all. So, I really had to get back into that character in a way.”