Baby Reindeer Creator Asks Fans to Stop Looking for Real-Life Characters
Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd didn’t make the show based on his life for you to play a game of “Guess Who.” Following intense speculation over characters’ real-life counterparts, which even prompted a police investigation after friend Sean Foley was falsely accused of being the creator’s abuser, Gadd has asked fans to stop looking into the true identities of the show’s key figures. “People I love, have worked with, and admire (including Sean Foley) are unfairly getting caught up in speculation,” he wrote in an Instagram Story on April 22. “Please don’t speculate on who any of the real life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.”
In his popular Netflix series, Gadd fictionalizes his personal trauma, including a woman who stalked him for years (Jessica Gunning) and a slimy fellow who sexually assaulted him (Tom Goodman-Hill). Baby Reindeer first came to life onstage as a one-man show written by and starring Gadd, becoming a hit at Edinburgh Festival Fringe when it premiered in 2019.
If digging up details on past figures in Gadd’s life isn’t the point, then what is? In an interview with Tudum, Gadd said he wasn’t interested in writing “a victim narrative.” “I think art is quite interesting when you don’t know who you are on the side of,” he said. “I wanted it to be layered, and I wanted it to capture the human experience. The human experience is that people are good, but they have bits of bad and they make mistakes.”
Related