Horror author Stephen King seemed to have the same reaction as most people when they watched Netflix's new show, Baby Reindeer.
Based on an award-winning hit Edinburgh Fringe one-man play, Baby Reindeer follows struggling comedian Donny Dunn's (Richard Gadd) messy relationship with his female stalker, Martha (Jessica Gunning). The impact Martha's stalking has on him forces him to face a deeply buried trauma.
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King took to X, formerly Twitter, to share his pithy take on the dramedy.
"BABY REINDEER: Holy s***," he wrote on a post that was viewed around 3.5 million times.
His followers shared their thoughts on his reaction to the Netflix show.
"Stop being scared of stuff Stephen, it's very scaring when you're scared," replied @in_bloke.
"I know, right? 🤯 I went through a whole rollercoaster ride of awful emotions, but I couldn't look away. My friends told me it was a comedy. Friends lie and now I'm scarred forever 🥺," @LanaMWiggins1 added.
While @allegrande twisted King's post back on him about one of his most famous thrillers, "MISERY: Holy s***," she wrote.
Before Baby Reindeer, Gadd performed a one-man show called Monkey See Monkey Do, that dealt with his experiences of overcoming sexual assault.
Baby Reindeer has gone viral since its release on April 11 and many online have speculated about Gadd's story, including who the real people were behind the characters of Martha and the writer who sexually assaulted Gadd. But Gadd asked fans on his Instagram stories to respect people's privacy.
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"Please don't speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That's not the point of our show. Lots of love, Richard," he wrote.
Gadd opened up on how close the show was to his own reality telling Forbes in April that the story was "100 percent emotionally true."
He also wrote a lengthy essay about his decision to turn his experiences with Martha into a comedy show, which would ultimately turn into a series for Netflix.
"I remember during a particularly long night of unrest; the idea came to me. To stage this whole ordeal, one day, when the time was right," he wrote for Netflix. "It felt like a risky thing – to do a 'warts and all' version of the story where I held my hands up to the mistakes I had made with Martha."
Gadd added: "All I ever wanted to do was capture something complicated about the human condition. That we all make mistakes. That no person is ever good or bad. That we are all lost souls looking for love in our own weird way."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more
