'Baby Reindeer' creator Richard Gadd questioned by producers after dating actor who auditioned for the show, reports say

• Richard Gadd faced questions after dating an actor while she was auditioning for "Baby Reindeer."
• Transgender actor Reece Lyons posted about her experience with Gadd on social media last month.

"Baby Reindeer" creator and star Richard Gadd was investigated by producers for professional misconduct after romantically pursuing an actor interested in playing his on-screen girlfriend in the Netflix series, according to a Deadline report.

The 34-year-old Scottish comedian has become an overnight sensation thanks to the success of the semi-autobiographical series, which lifts the lid on his experience of being stalked by a woman and raped by an older male television writer.

Another major theme in the series is Gadd's character's exploration of his sexual identity after his assault, which leads him to realize that he is interested in dating transgender women.

As the series unfolds, audiences see him grow comfortable with his new-found attraction. Gadd's character falls in love with a trans woman named Teri (played by Nava Mau), whom Gadd has confirmed is based on one of his ex-girlfriends.

Soon after the series premiered in early April, British transgender actor Reece Lyons posted a thread on X where she opened up about her experience after Gadd approached her in 2021, initially to discuss playing the role of Teri in the drama.

While Lyons did not disclose the person or show in her X posts, Deadline reported that it had verified that she was indeed referring to Gadd and "Baby Reindeer."

Lyons claimed in her X posts that Gadd asked her out on a date before her audition was confirmed. She agreed but ended things the following week as she didn't think "the conflation of the upcoming audition and dating each other at the same time was wise."

After that, Lyons claimed Gadd continued to pursue her, leaving her feeling "conflicted romantically" and worried that saying no to a second date would jeopardize her audition. After she was passed over for the role, she said she ended things with Gadd.

According to Deadline, Gadd had not disclosed his relationship with Lyons at the time. Metro has reported that it was Lyons' X thread — posted on April 16, five days after "Baby Reindeer" was released — that led to Gadd being questioned by producers at Clerkenwell Film.

The production company concluded that Gadd had acted appropriately and was cleared of any wrongdoing, although Deadline noted that it came to this conclusion without interviewing Lyons.

Representatives for Gadd and Netflix did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular working hours. Lyons told Deadline she did not wish to comment beyond her X thread.

In her 18-post-long thread, Lyons emphasized that she did not believe she was a victim of abuse but said she believed Gadd overstepped "boundaries" by "conflating a work opportunity with a dating dynamic."

She claimed that Gadd had an "intense and emotionally dysregulated reaction" when she shared her belief that he has a "tendency to fetishize trans women" and was "highly defensive and dismissive towards any observations I had to share with him."

She said this led her to question: "Where is the person who spoke so bravely and candidly about his own psyche in his work?"

"It astounded me how somebody who spoke so openly and poignantly within the context of his career about how a power dynamic with an older and more established writer quickly led to an abuse of power and the devastating effects this had on him," she wrote.

"Could then, in turn, become the very same person who recreated a strikingly similar power dynamic with me years later, where I found myself, ten years his junior, now auditioning for his show."

"After being on the receiving end of his refusal to accept any responsibility for what had happened and subsequent attempts to gaslight me, I almost began to gaslight myself in the process," Lyons continued.

According to Deadline, Gadd and Lyons went on four dates between October and November 2021 before Gadd ended the relationship in December.

The outlet reported that Lyons submitted her self-tape for the role of Teri three months later, in March 2022, and while Gadd did give feedback to Clerkenwell Films on audition tapes, he did not have final approval on "Baby Reindeer "casting.