Author Richard Osman says “everyone” in the industry knows the identity of the TV writer who abused actor Richard Gadd, the creator and star of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, but nobody will publicly say his name. Fan speculation, meanwhile, has allegedly led to false accusations.
Osman said in a recent episode of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that Gadd has been “very open to people in the industry” about who sexually assaulted him.
“Richard Gadd, as you said, did the show in Edinburgh, and has been very open to people in the industry about who that person was, so people in the industry know who that person was,” Osman said to his co-host, journalist Marina Hyde, on the podcast.
Baby Reindeer is a semi-autobiographical miniseries in which Gadd portrays a stand-up comedian struggling to deal with his female stalker.
Notably, when the show begins, the first words viewers see on the screen are, “This is a true story,” which Hyde noted is “unusual,” given that shows of this genre usually start with the disclaimer, “Based on a true story.”
To say that a show is “Based on a true story” gives writers leeway in adding fiction to the truth of what happened, but to unequivocally declare that a show “is a true story” means the story depicted on screen exactly replicates everything that happened in real life.
Therefore, many viewers have been trying to identify the real-life people depicted in Baby Reindeer, which has led to them successfully identifying Gadd’s female stalker but falsely identifying the television producer in question.
“People have got caught up in an absolute frenzy of internet sleuthing,” Hyde said. “The woman who Martha is based on has been identified.”
“The TV producer has been misidentified,” she added. “Certainly, people have been wrongly identified. Richard Gadd himself has had to issue a statement saying, ‘Please stop this sleuthing.'”
Osman added that the individual viewers have falsely identified is someone who “has produced Richard Gadd before, but is definitively not the person in any way.”
The author also noted that “the person they’ve cast in that role [of the abuser] looks like this other guy — looks like the guy who’s been falsely accused.”
“This poor guy has had death threats, and he’s had to issue a statement to say, ‘It’s not me,’ and it is not him, definitely not, because people in the industry know who it is — and it’s definitely not him,” Osman added.
“Richard Gadd has said it is not him,” Osman continued. “Honestly, I think they had no idea it was going to become such a huge [show].”
On April 22, Gadd took to his Instagram Stories to urge fans to stop trying to identify the real-life people the show’s characters are based on, according to a report by Today.
“People I love, have worked with, and admire (including Sean Foley) are unfairly getting caught up in speculation,” the actor wrote. “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real life people could be.”
Gadd concluded by stating, “That’s not the point of our show.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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