Further detailed allegations of sexual abuse and coercion involving Neil Gaiman have surfaced as more women speak out about the bestselling English author.
Allegations reported last year on a British podcast, Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman, prompted an in-depth investigation by New York culture magazine Vulture.
Neil Gaiman at The Sandman world premiere in London in 2022.Credit: Getty Images
Writer Lila Shapiro spoke to eight women. Among them are four of the five who had previously detailed their experiences on the podcast, as well as four others who share elements of their stories. Several of the women speak on the record and are identified.
One of the women, who worked as a nanny for Gaiman and his then wife, Amanda Palmer, in New Zealand, filed a police report accusing Gaiman of sexual assault, as did another woman who in October 2024 filed a report alleging Gaiman raped her. Shapiro quotes a police spokesperson as saying “the matter has been closed” in the case of the nanny.
Gaiman is best known for his children’s book Coraline, his graphic novels – including The Sandman series for DC Comics – and his fantasy novels including American Gods and Good Omens, the latter of which was written with Terry Pratchett. Named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2023, he has written more than 50 books and sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.
Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer in 2019.Credit: WireImage
In 2011, Gaiman married Palmer, author, singer and former member of the Dresden Dolls. They met in 2008, when she was 32 and he was 47. They divorced in 2022.
In July, the podcast produced by Tortoise Media broke the initial news that two women had accused Gaiman of sexual assault.
According to Shapiro, Gaiman’s view is that those relationships were entirely consensual.
She says most of the women were in their 20s when they met Gaiman: the youngest was 18, two of them worked for him, five were his fans.
“With one exception, an allegation of forcible kissing from 1986, when Gaiman was in his mid-20s, the stories take place when Gaiman was in his 40s or older, a period in which he lived among the US, the UK, and New Zealand,” she writes.
A slew of planned and ongoing television and film projects based on works by Gaiman have been left in limbo or cancelled amid the allegations, though studios have been hesitant to cite the allegations as the specific reason. Disney has paused a plan for a movie adaptation of The Graveyard Book, Netflix has decided not to renew the series Dead Boy Detectives, and pre-production was paused on the final season of Prime Video’s Good Omens before the decision was made to wrap up the series with a single 90-minute episode rather than a full season.
Gaiman denies the allegations.
National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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