Netflix’s Baby Reindeer used stalker’s real emails

Baby Reindeer is based on a true story, and if you’re wondering how true, the Netflix series used emails from creator and star Richard Gadd’s real-life stalking ordeal. 

While there’s plenty of new TV shows to get stuck into this month, perhaps none will pack a punch quite like Baby Reindeer. 

The seven-part series centers on Donny Dunn (Gadd), a stand-up comedian/barman who is forced to confront his past trauma when dangerous serial stalker Martha (Jessica Gunning) sets her sights on him.

Netflix’s iteration is an adaptation of Gadd’s Edinburgh Festival show of the same name, which itself is an adaptation of his real-life experiences being stalked for four years by a woman who called him “Baby Reindeer.”

During this time, she sent him a staggering 41,071 emails and 350 hours of voicemail messages, as well as 744 tweets, 106 pages of letters, and 46 Facebook messages. The series displays a host of these emails, which varied in tone and were filled with spelling and grammatical mistakes. 

One of them says, “Baby reindeer if u didnt want me comin to ur house then why u keep wakling th canal home? [sic].” In another, Martha writes, “Don thnk ill stop [sic].” A third added, “I need a ncie boy totake care of me, he who looks likea baby reindeer [sic].”

Netflix shared a collection of these messages online, writing: “Martha’s emails from Baby Reindeer. Every one of them real.” Speaking to the streamer’s Tudum about his experiences, Gadd explained: “It’s a true story. In a weird way, I first started feeling like this could be a good story during the whole ordeal itself. 

“It was one of the most intense periods, when I was listening to these voicemails. I’d go to sleep at night and these voicemails — her words would bounce around my eyelids. I remember thinking, ‘God, if I was ever to speak about this onstage, I’d fire the words around. Put the voicemails in a big cacophony and fire it.’ That’s how the play was born.”

Though it was challenging, by telling a story based on real-life, Baby Reindeer is unique in offering a nuanced approach to the issue of stalking. “Stalking on television tends to be very sexed-up. It has a mystique. It’s somebody in a dark alleyway. It’s somebody who’s really sexy, who’s very normal, but then they go strange bit by bit,” added Gadd. 

“But stalking is a mental illness. I really wanted to show the layers of stalking with a human quality I hadn’t seen on television before. It’s a stalker story turned on its head. It takes a trope and turns it on its head.”

Baby Reindeer is streaming on Netflix now. You can read about the best TV shows of 2024 so far, as well as all of the new movies to watch on streaming this month.