Richard Gadd has revealed he decided to confess all in his hit TV show Baby Reindeer because therapy failed to help him overcome the trauma of sexual abuse.
The Scots star, 35, tried various forms of counselling in order to come to terms with being raped by a powerful theatre producer who had promised to make him famous.
The comedian, from Fife, says he previously hinted at his ordeal as a stand-up comedian at Edinburgh’s Fringe festival, with his one-man show Monkey See, Monkey Do.
But he says nobody realised or believed what he’d been through until he opened up about his ordeal in the Netflix mini-series.
“Those shows still had traces of sexual abuse, but they were never done from like a deep, meaningful place,” Gadd said.
“But I realised I just wasn’t doing it in the right way. It was almost like I was trying to admit to it without admitting to it.
“I couldn’t keep it up any longer. I remember having a choice where either I join them up and do a comedy show but actually admit what’s happened to me, or I step away and try to deal with it on my own time.”
In deciding to write Baby Reindeer, he added: “I thought, well, that's my only recourse left. I've tried all the therapies. Let's try this.”
The muted reaction to his one man show inspired him to come clean about the abuse at the hands of an older man while writing Baby Reindeer, which has gone on to earn him a trio of Emmy awards.
Though he admits his previous attempts at comedy had bombed.
He said: “The early shows were quite debauched and punky and anti-comedy and in-your-face.
“There’s almost nothing worse than dying on stage – it takes a bit of you every single time.
“You have those moments where it's almost healing you as it's happening. It's like a drug, I guess.
“I’ve had gigs where they've gone so well I've cried after them because I just didn't really know what to do with my emotions.
“And then I've had gigs that were so bad I've cried after them as well. There's nothing like the feeling of dying on your arse, and there's nothing like the feeling of smashing the place.
“When you go out in wigs and teeth and prance around it’s like, ‘Oh this guy is having a breakdown’. It’s like there’s a deeper level to the death. It’s like, 'Oh, there’s something wrong with him'.”
Gadd, who is the cover star of the latest issue of GQ Hype, was a complete unknown when he wrote Baby Reindeer.
Sitting in his new spartan flat in London during lockdown in 2020, he says he penned “thousands” of drafts of the show.
He took his autobiographical play about having a stalker and turned it into a TV series.
Gadd said: “I remember thinking, This is the fast track to madness. I’m writing this really dark show, and I've got no soft furnishings. Nothing on the walls. I didn’t have a TV. My mattress was on the floor. There was no bed frame.”
Baby Reindeer has gone on to become one the streaming channel’s most popular shows of all time.
It has picked up three Emmy awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series, Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, and Outstanding Limited Series.
Gadd admits the show’s success became overwhelming.
“I couldn’t escape from it,” he said. “Turn on the TV, there’d be something on the TV. Turn on the radio, they’d be talking about it. I’d go to Sainsbury’s – I’d be in the newspapers.”
In the seven-parter, he plays a fictionalised version of himself called Donny Dunn who is stalked by a Scots woman called Martha.
Internet sleuths quickly identified his real-life stalker as Scots law graduate Fiona Harvey - who has denied many of the claims made about her in the show.
As in real life, Gadd is also groomed by a powerful entertainment producer in Baby Reindeer, who rapes him in several scenes.
The Scot, who could walk away at this year’s upcoming BAFTA Scotland awards as ‘favourite Scot on screen’ which is down to a public vote, says it is only after being honest about his experience at the hands of the rapist, who has yet to be identified, that he has been able to move on from the shame and trauma he endured.
He added: “I’m not saying everyone should write film scripts or do plays. But I think everyone in their life has at some point felt so wretched that they go, ‘Dear diary… ’ and they just get all out on the paper, and by the end of it there's always a feeling of relief.
“I think writing and processing it into the word really helps. It helps get you out of your head.”
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