Miranda Cosgrove’s ‘Baby Reindeer’ Story: Recalls Traumatic Stalker Incident

Former Nickelodeon actress Miranda Cosgrove is recalling her own ‘Baby Reindeer’ incident, which has resulted in her fear of living in her own home.

‘Baby Reindeer’ quickly rose to Netflix’s top 10 shortly after its release. It follows a struggling comedian named Richard Gadd, who shows kindness to a woman who enters the bar in tears. However, his simple act of kindness quickly becomes terrifying as the woman becomes obsessed with him.

After its popularity, Cosgrove is speaking out about her own ‘Baby Reindeer’ story.

In 2016, an incident unfolded at the Los Angeles residence of the then 30-year-old Nickelodeon actress Miranda Cosgrove. The man had been stalking her, but the situation took a turn after he set himself on fire and then committed suicide by gunshot on her property.

Thankfully, the actress was unharmed as she wasn’t home at the time. However, when she returned, she found her home had become a crime scene.

Prior to this incident, the man had shot at a woman who resembled Cosgrove when she drove past her home. Years after the encounter, the ‘iCarly’ actress attended a charity event for animal rescue, where she unexpectedly ran into the survivor of the shooting.

“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 told Bustle. “She seemed like she processes things in a similar way that I do.”

Because the two could relate in respect to coping mechanisms, the former Nickelodeon star said the tragic event actually helped them bond.

“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,” she recalled. “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.”

Because of the incident, Miranda Cosgrove admits she continues to live at both her parents’ house and her own home because she is scared to spend too much time at the house where the tragedy occurred.

“That’s another reason why I go back and forth to my parents’ house so much,” she told the outlet. “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.”

The 30-year-old continues to look for a “place that I feel really safe, to kind of start a new chapter.”

Despite having a similar incident to the story told in Netflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer,’ Cosgrove says she watched and enjoyed the show.

“I didn’t think about it very much,” she recalled of watching the show before giving Richard Gadd, who portrayed himself in the series and relieved his own trauma, credit.“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.”

“I would love to meet somebody and be in a relationship,” she told the outlet. “But I’m not doing a whole lot to make that happen.”

“I’m still on Raya,” she added. “But I never actually talk to anybody. I sort of feel like it’s my fault because I’m not talking to people, but I barely ever even look at it. And when I do, I kind of just swipe. It feels almost like a game. And even when I talk to someone a little bit, it doesn’t really turn into meeting up.”