A fanatic Benedict Cumberbatch devotee has been reported to the police by ‘Sherlock’ co-stars Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington after directing death threats against them online, claiming that they “giving him [Cumberbatch] a bad name”.
Abbington and Freeman, who appear in the BBC mystery drama together, contacted authorities after the anonymous fan posted a picture of a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, saying “Shall we start prepping for a possible funeral?”
The anonymous blogger also wrote: “Both Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington are starting to give Benedict and all his fans a bad name! They seriously just need to shut up and f****** die already!”
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in a publicity shot for the ‘Sherlock’ Victorian special
Abbington decided to go public with the original, shocking photo of the baseball bat via her own Twitter feed, writing on Saturday (September 5th): “To the coward who’s since shut this blog down. We’ve already informed the police sweetie. They have all the info.”
More: ‘Sherlock’ will be more “polished” in the Victorian era, says Steven Moffat
Freeman and Abbington, who play the married on-screen couple Dr Watson and Mary Morstan in ‘Sherlock’, are together in real life too – they’ve been an item for 15 years and have two children together.
In January 2014, Abbington revealed that she had received a number of death threats when the BBC announced that she would be playing Dr Watson’s wife. “I got, ‘She should die. How dare she play Mary Morstan? How dare she!’,” she said at the time. “They take the John and Sherlock storyline so seriously that they wouldn’t want anyone coming between them.”
Many celebrity gossip watchers are well aware of the obsessive nature of some of Benedict Cumberbatch’s fans, who dub themselves ‘Cumberbitches’, but this is an example of a tiny minority within.
More: Increase the licence fee to save BBC drama, says exiting chief behind ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Poldark’
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