This Morning talking head Matthew Wright told Lorraine Kelly about his traumatic experience of being stalked on her show today (May 22).
Matthew was on the show to discuss Netflix series Baby Reindeer and how it’s prompted a rise in the number of calls to stalking helplines.
He told Lorraine: “I have such mixed feelings about this show. But, that’s a positive. I’m not saying that the positives justify the negatives but it is a positive and it shows patterns of behaviour from both men towards women and women towards men. Because he is as much a stalker of her…
“When I reflected on my stalking situation, I never wanted to go visit my stalker’s house, I didn’t want to buy my stalker a drink, I didn’t want to see this woman or have anything to do with her at all. And that’s where the lines are blurred in Baby Reindeer.”
Stalker of This Morning star Matthew Wright handed restraining order
Michelle Ranicar repeatedly visited Matthew’s London home bearing gifts and messages declaring her love for him.
The visits began after she was barred from being a guest in the audience of his Channel 5 chat show The Wright Stuff due to security concerns over her behaviour towards the presenter.
She then approached Matthew’s pregnant wife Amelia at a charity event in September 2018. At the event, she told her: “Women your age with IVF babies are more likely to have stillbirths.”
In early January 2019, she shouted through the letterbox at heavily pregnant Amelia: “When is the baby due? Which hospital? Let me look after her.”
The woman has an autistic spectrum disorder and a mild learning disability. In 2020 she was sentenced to a three-year community order and a restraining order for one count of stalking.
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‘Looking over your shoulder’
Now, after watching Baby Reindeer, This Morning regular Matthew said the memories of his own traumatic stalking ordeal have resurfaced.
He told Lorraine today: “The first moment where it was a real [punches hand] was episode 2 or episode 3 which was when he was doing his comedy act and she was suddenly in the audience.
“I did a charity fashion awards just locally for my community centre and everybody had glammed up and this woman [was in the crowd]. I didn’t even recognise her because there was this person that I used to see around my TV show and around my neighbourhood but she was very glammed up, all her hair was done. My wife said: ‘No, that’s her.’
“It was looking over your shoulder. Every time we went out the front door, you wondered about what you were going to encounter. She would turn up at the letterbox when we had just had the baby. She was banging on the door, trying to take photos through the letterbox demanding that we produced the baby.
“There was a lot of abuse to Amelia. She had imagined herself as my partner which is kind of what happened in Baby Reindeer. But I wasn’t responding in any shape or form.”
‘Not sure I’d put it on Netflix’
Sharing his thoughts on the series, he added: “Richard Gadd has an opportunity with his show where he said he’s written it as a sort of therapy, reconciling the abuse that he had and his experience with the stalker.
“He’s written it all down and I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. But I’m just not sure if I was him that I would choose to put it on Netflix and sell it around the world.
“It’s your truth, it’s your story. But you’re bringing other people into your truth and we can already see people trying to guess who is who. I’m not sure that is very helpful either.”
Read more: Lorraine Kelly shares sex of her unborn grandchild
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