The best-selling Sandman, Good Omens and Coraline fantasy writer, 64,was first accused of sexual assault in July 2023 – when British podcast Master posted six episodes centred on sexual assault allegations against the novelist from five different women.
Neil Gaiman separated from singer Amanda Palmer. The pair lived in New Zealand for some time, where a babysitter accused Gaiman of rape at their Waiheke Island home. Photo / Charlie Clift
He has since been struck by more scandal as several women have spoken on record to Vulture, New York Magazine’s culture section, claiming they had disturbing experiences with the famed scribe.
Gaiman said he felt “horror and dismay” reading the accusations against him but is adamant he has “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity” in his life.
Reacting in a blog post on Tumblr, he penned: “As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.”
On revisiting his communications with his accusers, he said he admitted feeling “deep regret” for being “careless with people’s hearts and feelings”.
He went on: “And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret.”
She said she and 48-year-old actress Amanda – who he married in 2011 – had been friends since Scarlett was 22, and Amanda had asked Pavlovich to babysit her and Gaiman’s son at his Waiheke Island home when the couple were separated.
Scarlett said she was persuaded to take a bath naked in Gaiman’s back garden before he joined her naked and performed a sex act against her will while telling her to call him “master” and calling her a “good girl”.
She added that he continued his alleged assaults on her throughout her time babysitting for the family and said his son started to call her a “slave” and ordered her to call him “master”.
Another woman identified as Caroline told Vulture he once placed her hand on his privates.
She said: “He didn’t have boundaries. I remember thinking that there was something really wrong with him.”
Neil Gaiman attends The Art Of Elysium's 2024 HEAVEN Gala at The Wiltern on January 06, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. The author is facing sexual assault allegations in New Zealand. Photo / Getty Images
Multiple other women spoke with Vulture for the cover story, including Katherine Kendall, who met Gaiman in 2012 when she was 22 and alleged that he attempted to have sex with her on his tour bus.
Kendra Stout, who met the writer at a book signing when she was 18, alleged that the author raped her in 2007.
Gaiman, who has had a string of TV adaptations of his work, had already denied all the allegations before the latest exposé, but stepped back from production of the third season of Prime Video’s version of Good Omen.
