THE CREATOR of Baby Reindeer has begged fans to stop searching for the real people behind the Netflix series as it has started to affect people he knows and loves.
The show follows the story of a man who is relentlessly perused by a mentally ill woman who is obsessed with him.
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Sadly, it is based on the real life experience of Scottish comedian and leading star Richard Gaad.
He turned the traumatic stalking incident into a critically-acclaimed play for the Edinburgh Fringe before it got commissioned as a TV series by Netflix.
But Richard is now pleading for viewers to stop trying to identify the woman, who is called Martha in the psychological thriller.
Fans have been speculating about who she is online, and some even think they have figured out her name and where she lives.
Another storyline in Baby Reindeer also showed Richard’s character Donny being repeatedly sexually assaulted by fictional male TV writer Darrien.
Online sleuths attempted to hunt him down as well, and ended up sending abuse and death threats to a man unrelated to the events the show is based on.
The individual, who was wrongly accused by fans, had to report his harassment to the cops.
A spokesman for a British police force confirmed: “We’re investigating after a man reported receiving threatening messages on social media.
“Enquiries are at an early stage and we are in the process of gathering information from the victim.”
In the aftermath Richard issued a statement on Instagram, saying: “People I love, have worked with, and admire… are unfairly getting caught up in speculation.
“Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show. Lots of love, Richard.”
The writer also made it clear that he anonymised characters for legal reasons and to protect vulnerable people.
Richard told Variety magazine: “It’s all emotionally 100% true, if that makes sense.
“It’s all borrowed from instances that happened to me and real people that I met.
“But of course, you can’t do the exact truth, for both legal and artistic reasons.
“I mean there’s certain protections, you can’t just copy somebody else’s life and name and put it onto television.
“And obviously, we were very aware that some characters in it are vulnerable people, so you don’t want to make their lives more difficult.
“So you have to change things to protect yourself and protect other people.”
