Baby Reindeer might be Netflix‘s latest hit, but the chilling story behind the show has inspired other people to speak out about their own harrowing stalking experiences, including Miranda Cosgrove.
In 2020, the iCarly star revealed that four years prior, she had been stalked by a man who later set himself on fire and took his life in front of her home. Cosgrove recalled the story to Whitney Cummings, and now, she revealed even more about the scary situation.
Cosgrove, who stars in Netflix’s rom-com Mother of the Bride, told Bustle that the incident still affects her. “That’s another reason why I go back and forth to my parents’ house so much,” she said. “I just don’t feel super safe in that house. For two years after it happened, I wouldn’t really stay there. Then I got into a relationship and because that person was there with me, I was less scared. But I don’t really like being there on my own that much.”
Cosgrove’s stalker had been frequenting the actress’ house, and even shot at a woman who resembled her. Cosgrove met the survivor at an event years later. “This girl came up to me, and she was like, ‘I didn’t know if I should tell you this here or how to say this, but I’m actually the girl that was at your house that got shot at.’ She seemed like she processes things in a similar way that I do,” Cosgrove said. “She said she’d just gone through a breakup the night before and was going to her friend’s house because she was so distraught. When they brought her into the Hollywood Police Station to ask what he looked like and how it all happened, the detectives were like, ‘Start from the very beginning. What happened?’ And she was like, ‘Well, he broke up with me last night,’ and she started telling them all about her breakup.”
Even though Cosgrove enjoyed Baby Reindeer, she said she could never retell her trauma on a show in the way that Richard Gadd does. “I feel like if that were me, having to go back through your most terrible experiences and then try to act them [out], that’d be so hard,” she confessed.
Meanwhile, the real-life “Martha” from Baby Reindeer insists that the Netflix series is not accurate. “He is lying, and they [Netflix] are lying,” Fiona Harvey told Piers Morgan. “They have billed it as a true story, so has he, and it’s not. It’s blatantly not.”
Both Baby Reindeer and Mother of thee Bride are streaming on Netflix. Chose wisely.