Best-selling author Neil Gaiman denies sexual assault of two women, one in New Zealand

Author Neil Gaiman.

WARNING: This story contains allegations of sexual assault.

Best-selling author Neil Gaiman has been accused of sexual assault by two women and is reportedly the subject of a New Zealand police complaint.

In an investigation for The Tortoise podcast, two women claim Gaiman engaged in sadomasochistic acts and told them to call him “master”.

Gaiman, 63, is an English author known for works such as The Sandman, Good Omens and American Gods.

Gaiman has denied the separate allegations of sexual misconduct by a woman in New Zealand and a woman in Florida.

When contacted by the Herald this morning, New Zealand police would not confirm whether they had received a complaint about Gaiman, citing privacy laws.

Gaiman, his ex-wife Amanda Palmer and their 4-year-old son spent their level 4 lockdown in a Havelock North Airbnb in 2020. Gaiman left New Zealand at the end of February 2022.

According to Tortoise Media, New Zealand police said it made a “number of attempts to speak to key people as part of this investigation and those efforts remain ongoing”, adding that there are “a number of factors to take into consideration with this case, including location of all parties”.

One woman, named Scarlett, claimed Gaiman sexually assaulted her within hours of their first meeting at his home in New Zealand in early 2022.

While she was hired as a nanny for Gaiman’s family, she alleges Gaiman stripped naked and joined her in the bath. She was 22 and he was 61.

Gaiman said the incident amounted to only “cuddling” and “making out” and it was consensual.

While Gaiman acknowledges that they were intimate, he maintains it was consensual, describing their interaction as cuddling and making out in a bath. However, Scarlett contends that their subsequent three-week relationship involved non-consensual rough and degrading acts, The UK’s Telegraph reported.

On another occasion, Scarlett alleged that the sex between them “was so painful and so violent” that she lost consciousness.

She also claimed she was required to sign an NDA after she stopped working as the family’s nanny.

Scarlett reported Gaiman to the police in October 2022, eight months after her brief relationship with the author ended, the Telegraph said.

The second woman, K, was 18 when she met Gaiman at a book signing in Sarasota, Florida, in 2003.

They began a romantic relationship together but alleges that she submitted to rough and painful sex that “she neither wanted nor enjoyed”, Tortoise Media said.

In one incident she alleges Gaiman penetrated her despite her asking him not to as she was suffering from a painful infection. Gaiman denies any unlawful behaviour with K.