From ‘Assassination of Versace’ to ‘Baby Reindeer,’ Fact and Friction at the Emmys
With 11 Emmy nominations, including one for outstanding limited or anthology series, and viewership in the all-time U.S. top 10, Baby Reindeer has proved a massive success for Netflix.
Richard Gadd’s dramatic thriller — about a woman named Martha (Jessica Gunning) who stalks Gadd’s bartender character, Donny — claims in a title card to be “a true story” based on Gadd’s experience.
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But a defamation lawsuit filed in June by the real-life Martha, Fiona Harvey, alleges that Baby Reindeer is not as true as it claims. Unlike Martha, Harvey never went to jail for stalking Gadd and has never been convicted of a crime. “[Gadd is] making money out of my misery,” she told Piers Morgan. “He’s the ultimate misogynist.”
The case has led to a splashy legal back-and-forth in which Gadd has admitted in filings that the show “is fictionalized and is not intended to portray actual facts” and Netflix filed a motion arguing the defamatory statements in question are “substantially true.” All of this may have complicated the Emmy outlook for the critically acclaimed series, which had seemed like a strong favorite after nominations.
Reached by email, Harvey’s lawyer Richard Roth said “it is clear that Netflix, in an attempt to increase revenues and obtain awards, including Emmys, sacrificed truth and transparency for profits … the series would never have achieved the popularity and acclaim it now has had Netflix been honest.”
A Netflix spokeswoman pointed to the motion to dismiss filed by lawyer Marvin Putnam that read, in part, “Harvey did, in fact, harass and stalk Gadd in real life. She sent him thousands of emails, handwritten letters and social media posts and left him hours of voicemails.” She also alluded to an earlier statement that Netflix intends “to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story.”
As it turns out, this narrative is not new. In recent years, a growing number of Emmy contenders have provoked a backlash from real-life figures as companies invest in more fact-based stories while the landscape for online sleuthing (and reacting) becomes hotter than ever.
Here’s a look at similar controversial contenders — and the clues they offer as voters fill out their ballots.
Inventing Anna (2022 Emmys)
The Shonda Rhimes Netflix series, about New York high-society con woman Anna Sorokin, absorbed a lot of criticism from former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams for how she was depicted in the show — in February 2022, she called the series a “con woman’s PR.” The journalist would eventually file a defamation lawsuit against Netflix that August after voting closed, alleging that she never betrayed Sorokin as her character does in the show and that she is unfairly portrayed as “snobbish,” “unethical” and “greedy.” Inventing Anna was nominated for outstanding limited or anthology series and lead actress at the Emmys but failed to win.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2023 Emmys)
Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series, which followed the crimes of the infamous murderer, became a major hit for the streamer when it premiered in September 2022, creating a Baby Reindeer-like buzz. But shortly after it dropped, the series saw blowback from the families of Dahmer’s victims. Rita Isbell, the sister of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, led the charge against the series with an essay written in September 2022 for Insider. “I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it.” Her cousin Eric Perry offered in a social media post that “It’s retraumatizing over and over again, and for what?” The show was nominated for 13 Emmys, including outstanding limited or anthology series, and won just one for supporting actress.
Feud: Bette and Joan (2017 Emmys)
Ryan Murphy’s FX dramatization of the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford landed 18 noms but won only two lower-profile prizes, for makeup and hairstyling, after Olivia de Havilland filed a defamation suit in June of that year. (De Havilland claimed the depiction of her damaged her “professional reputation for integrity, honesty, generosity, self-sacrifice and dignity.”) There’s no way to know what role the lawsuit played in the losses, of course — but a Hollywood icon persistently coming after the show certainly didn’t help.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018 Emmys)
It didn’t take long after Tom Rob Smith’s FX show about the killing of the famous fashion designer debuted in December 2017 for the Versace family to denounce the piece. In January, the family denigrated it as a “work of fiction” and issued a statement saying that they had not authorized the series or been consulted on its writing. Yet voters overlooked the controversy, and Versace would take the limited series prize.
That instance, at least, bodes well for fans of Baby Reindeer, who have one powerful reason to vote for the show — their heart. “I don’t think the lawsuit really takes away from the way people feel about the series or the things they felt about it while watching it,” one awards specialist said in an interview.
Costume designer Salvador Pérez, a voter and two-time Emmy nominee, offered a different piece of logic in an interview with THR. “Whether it’s true or not doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “As storytellers, we embellish, and [Gadd] made a great story.”
This story first appeared in the August 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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