Fiona Harvey, the woman who claimed she is the real-life Martha from Baby Reindeer, is utterly dissatisfied with the $315 (£250) offered to her for her exclusive interview with Piers Morgan.
The 58-year-old woman claimed the talk show host already made at least $315,300 (£250,000) off of her appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Wednesday, May 9.
The bombshell interview, seen by viewers from all corners of the globe, has received 11.2 million views so far.
“They offered me £250 and I asked if that was what they paid everyone and, if so, I wanted to see documentation to that effect,” the Scottish woman from Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, told Daily Record. “That documentation has not been forthcoming. I have not signed a contract for the interview and I will be seeking far more than a piddling £250.”
The law graduate said she wants a seven-figure amount for having the sit-down with the British talk show host, who Fiona claimed put up “a big act” in front of her to clinch the explosive interview.
Fiona Harvey, who claimed to be the inspiration behind the character of Martha Scott from Baby Reindeer, said she was only offered $315 (£250) for her Piers Morgan Uncensored interview
Image credits: Piers Morgan Uncensored
“I’d settle for a million. I read a snippet online that Piers felt very sorry for me but he feels sorry for no one,” she told the outlet. “His staff were being so nice and saying everything was OK but when I went in to meet him he could barely look at me. It was all a big act. He didn’t even say goodbye and only got the photograph taken with me because he needed it for the publicity. I also think he’s ill. He was very pale, white as a sheet under those TV cameras and he looked very drawn. He’s lost a lot of weight. Is he ill? You do wonder.”
An insider for Piers responded to her claims and told the outlet, “We agreed a standard appearance fee with Fiona and paid for her hair and make-up and car.”
Fiona became the subject of headlines after claiming she is the inspiration behind Baby Reindeer, which has amassed nearly 54 million views since its release in April.
The hit series has been trending on Netflix with the tag of a “true story” that's based on a real incident from the life of Scottish comedian Richard Gadd.
Viewers remained glued to their screens as they watched the dark and dramatic miniseries starring Richard himself, who played a fictionalized version of himself through the character Donny Dunn, a struggling comedian and bartender.
The Scottish woman demanded "a million" for the interview and claimed the talk show host made at least $315,300 (£250,000) because of her appearance
Image credits: Piers Morgan Uncensored
In the show, Donny crosses paths with Martha Scott and offers her an act of kindness, after which she relentlessly stalks him and bombards him with 40,000 emails and hundreds of hours of voice messages.
“None of this happened. It’s a load of rubbish,” Fiona vehemently said following the success of the Netflix show and the portrayal of Martha, whose character is reportedly based on her.
“I’ve not been to prison. I don’t know where the four-and-a-half years and nine months comes in,” she told the Daily Record. “This is all made up and hyperbole. There are no restraining orders, injunctions, or interdicts anywhere. There’s just no way. I’ve not had the police at my door about any of these things.”
The Scottish lawyer revealed that she was considering the idea of filing a lawsuit against Netflix and Richard for defamation.
In her first talk show appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the law graduate from the University of Aberdeen said she found the show “horrifying” and “misogynistic.”
“He’s making money out of untrue fact, he’s the ultimate misogynist,” she said about Richard during the interview.
After Fiona slammed the £250 for the interview, Piers addressed her criticism during an appearance on the Australian radio program Hughesy, Ed & Erin.
“We give her the same as we give 95 percent of our guests,” the British TV personality was quoted saying.
“I won’t say what it was, but we also paid for her to have a nice haircut, we got her a nice car, and so on. I think we treated her very fairly and reasonably,” he added while speaking to hosts Dave Hughes, Ed Kavalee, and Erin Molan.
Fiona Harvey's appearance rewarded Piers Morgan with 11 million views on YouTube so far: "One of the clips on our TikTok channel has had 26 million views," the British talk show host said
Image credits: Piers Morgan Uncensored
Piers also admitted that he didn’t predict his interview with Fiona to go as viral as it did.
“The bottom line is, this Baby Reindeer thing, I didn’t really understand what a huge phenomenon this is. But it is an absolute global phenomenon,” the former tabloid editor said.
“To give you some idea, the interview on our YouTube channel has so far had 11 million views, one of the clips on our TikTok channel has had 26 million views. These numbers are like nothing we’d ever seen,” he continued. “We’ve had 200,000 new subscribers to our YouTube channel in the last six days, so there is something about Baby Reindeer that has captivated the world.”
The journalist-turned-TV star also believes Fiona can go home with a massive paycheck if she can prove in court that Netflix’s “this is a true story” claim in Baby Reindeer is false.
Image credits: Netflix
After Fiona’s identity became public and exposed her to death threats and phone calls from strangers, Netflix’s UK public policy director, Benjamin King, defended the show during a UK Parliament hearing.
Benjamin said the online streaming giant and producer Clerkenwell Films had taken “every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story.”
“Baby Reindeer is an extraordinary story and it is obviously a true story of the horrific abuse that the writer and protagonist Richard Gadd suffered at the hands of a convicted stalker,” the streamer’s senior public policy director said.
He also said during the parliament hearing that it’s “obviously very difficult to control what viewers do, particularly in a world where everything is amplified by social media.”
“I personally wouldn’t be comfortable with a world in which we decided it was better that Richard was silenced and not allowed to tell the story,” he continued.
"That's so Martha," people said about the Scottish law graduate's demand for more money from the British TV personality
