The lawyer for Fiona Harvey, the Scottish woman who came forward as the “real Martha” portrayed in Netflix’s “Baby Reindeer,” told Chris Cuomo she has been “stalked” and “harassed” since the show’s release.
Since the Netflix show became a hit, Harvey has filed a $170 million defamation lawsuit against Netflix, arguing that marketing the story as “true” is “the biggest lie in television history.”
“Netflix starts the series, and it doesn’t say ‘this is based on a true story’ or ‘inspired by a true story.’ It says five words: ‘This is a true story,’” her attorney Richard Roth said during a NewsNation segment Tuesday. Roth argues that if Netflix is going to market something as a “true story,” “you better make sure it’s true.”
“It comes up that she was convicted of stalking and spent four and a half years in jail,” Roth continued. “That never happened. She has never been arrested.”
Roth says “they portray this woman as a two-time convicted felon when, in reality, she’s never even been arrested for anything.”
“If you’re going to claim a story that someone is convicted of a crime twice and spent over five years in jail, then you better be accurate because there are people that it affects,” Roth added. “In the world we live in, it was very easy to find out who the Martha character was based on.”
Cuomo then questioned how people would know Harvey was the real-life Martha if she hadn’t come forward herself.
“In today’s day and age, if you want to put someone on TV, you have to at least mask their identity. She’s the same size, has the same Scottish accent, went to the same bar,” Roth argued.
The lawyer added that it would be very easy to find out who Martha was in real life by a quick Google or social media search.
As a result, “she’s been harassed. She’s been stalked. She is getting death threats. She’s afraid to go buy groceries, and she’s not a public figure,” Roth said.
“No one knows better than you—that we live in a world where fake news thrives,” Roth said referring to Cuomo. “When someone says, ‘This is true,’ it better be true. And it’s no different with your network.”
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