‘Baby Reindeer’ $170M Defamation Case Against Netflix Gets 2025 Trial Date

A date has been set for the $170 million defamation lawsuit against Netflix over the Baby Reindeer series.

On Tuesday, a federal judge set the date of May 6, for Fiona Harvey’s suit against the streaming platform, which aired a series allegedly based on her life and relationship with the writer.

Baby Reindeer became one Netflix’s most streamed series' of all time, amassing 84.5 million views in its first 91 days. The psychological thriller was written by Scottish man, Richard Gadd, who played himself in the series about his experience with stalking, at the hands of a woman dubbed Martha Scott.

• Dave Grohl's baby mother - Everything we know about Foo Fighters rocker's affair
• Amanda Balionis reveals next step and teases appearance after emotional farewell

After the success of the show, 58-year-old Fiona Harvey came forward claiming to be the ‘real-life’ Martha, but contradicted Gadd’s storyline insisting that things were blown out of proportion.

"I don't think I sent him anything," she told Piers Morgan. "There may have been a couple of emails, jokey banter, but that is it."

Harvey filed a lawsuit against Netflix on June 6, 2024, accusing the streaming giant of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, gross negligence and violations of her right of publicity.

“Martha Scott is not Fiona Harvey,” Gaad said in a July 28 declaration backing Netflix’s attempt to get the matter dismissed. “Like all characters in the Series, Martha is a fictional character with fictional personality traits that are very different than Harvey’s.”

The announcement of the court date comes as Baby Reindeer is nominated for multiple awards at the Primetime Emmy Awards this Sunday. The show is up for Best Limited or Anthology Series and a Lead Actor in a Limited series and writing nod for Gadd, as well as a Best Supporting Actress nom for co-star Jessica Gunning, who depicted Martha.

For the latest local news and features on Irish America, visit our homepage here .