For Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, it was inevitable that he'd tell his own personal horror story on stage, when he was ready.
But he couldn't have foreseen that a scripted series inspired by his life would become Netflix's No. 1 show in the U.S. and U.K. and launch a viral conversation about trauma, stalking, privacy and the perils of posing a mystery that Internet sleuths will feel compelled to solve.
And yet that's been the case with Baby Reindeer, the seven-episode gut punch Gadd adapted from his 2019 one-man show of the same name. He admittedly took plenty of creative liberties with the narrative and the main character is named Donny Dunn—but he's played by Gadd, exorcising his demons once again in pitch-black comedy form.
Only this time, millions of people have watched.
"It's clearly struck a chord," Gadd, 34, told The Guardian after the series' April 14 premiere. "I really did believe in it, but it's taken off so quickly that I do feel a bit windswept."
Not least because Baby Reindeer is whatever the polar opposite is of an easy watch. You meet struggling comedian Donny bartending in a London pub, unaware of the soul-crushing experience that led him there. What happens after he's already reached rock bottom is so infuriating, you could have easily accused the show's creator of just trying to shock at whatever cost.
If, that is, a title card at the beginning didn't tell you that "this is a true story."
The plot was "tweaked slightly to create dramatic climaxes," said Gadd, who wrote every episode. "It's very emotionally true, obviously: I was severely stalked and severely abused. But we wanted it to exist in the sphere of art, as well as protect the people it's based on."
Whether or not that part is working out has provided the latest twist in the Baby Reindeer saga.
A woman has asserted to the Daily Mail that she is the person who's being depicted as stalker Martha (played by Jessica Gunning), but that it's Gadd who has the problem. And self-deputized online detectives have had no qualms about introducing real names into the equation.
"Please don't speculate on who any of the real-life people could be," Gadd wrote on Instagram in response. "That's not the point of our show."
And why is it even called Baby Reindeer, you ask? Spoilers ahead, but here's the story behind the most debated show of the year: