Another shock in the artistic world and especially in her area are the accusations directed against the famous books and comics of fantasy fiction, with hits like “The Sandman” and “Coraline”, Neil Gaiman, for .
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These days, the stormy report of New York Magazine, published on Monday, January 13, 2025, in which the women who accuse Gaiman of rape, officially speak about their experiences, has left many readers of the English author, in a horrible confusion. This is because Gaiman stands out for his feminist and progressive view of his subjects, which promote inclusion and acceptance of diversity.
It was last July when Tortoise Media brought to light that Gaiman was accused of sexual assault. The Medium released a six-chapter podcast titled “Master,” revealing the allegations of five women. However, several of the women have used only their first names or pseudonyms to protect their identities, and no major news organization has yet confirmed the full extent of their reports. That is until today.
In the New York Magazine article that is now going around the world, entitled “There Is No Safe Word”, journalist Lila Shapiro presents the testimonies of eight women who had similar traumatic sexual experiences from the author, while four of them also participated in Tortoise podcast.
One of the women speaking out, Scarlett Pavlovic, reveals she was 22 when she first met Gaiman’s ex-wife Amanda Plummer in New Zealand. The two became friends to the point where Palmer felt comfortable asking her to babysit for the couple’s 5-year-old child. But things did not go smoothly as Gaiman offered her a bath in a bathtub in his garden while she waited for the child to finish playing, where he asked her – naked – to sit on his knees and sexually assaulted her.
Pavlovich describes her sexual abuse in every detail in New York Magazine, and among other things, she refers to her abuser’s insistence on calling him “Master”.
Pavlovic claims the pattern of assault continued while she was babysitting for the family, including one time where he allegedly tried to have anal sex with her using butter as a lubricant.
When he was done, he called her a “slave” and ordered her to “clean him up,” the article said. She protested that this was unsanitary, while he said to her: “Are you defying your master?” “I had to lick my s…” she recalls in a description that adds further shocking examples of abuse.
Recounting another incident, Pavlovich talks about how Gaiman, when he was staying with his son at a hotel in Oakland, asked her to watch the child while he massaged her. He claims he then proceeded to have sex with her while his son was in the room, and continued to talk to him during the act.
The Sandman. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022
The New York Magazine article states that all of the accusers had in one way or another acceded to his wishes and to being called “master” as he wished by continuing to communicate with him, however consent and specific BDSM activities were not had been discussed and agreed upon before they were carried out.
For Gaiman’s part, his representatives told the Tortoise podcast that “sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism may not be to everyone’s taste, but between consenting adults, BDSM is legal.”
Furthermore, the author himself has denied all allegations against him since the podcast was released, claiming that all relationships were consensual. In a statement in response to Pavlovic’s claim about the incident in the hotel room, his representatives called it “false” and “deplorable”.
Coming back to the fore and on the defensive in a post on his personal blog on Tuesday, January 15, under the headline Breaking The Silence, Gaiman says he read the allegations in New York Magazine with “horror and disgust.”
“I have remained silent until now, both out of respect for the people who shared their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a major misinformation,” he writes.
He continues: “I’ve always been a privacy person and increasingly see social media as the wrong place to talk about important personal matters. But I have reached the point where I feel I must say something.
“As I read these latest accounts, there are moments I recognize and others I don’t, descriptions of things that happened along with things that clearly didn’t happen.
“I am by no means a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. When.”
Gaiman also says he re-read old messages he had exchanged with the women who accuse him. According to him, these are messages from “two people who are enjoying completely consensual sexual relations and want to see each other again”, he said.
“And I also realize, looking back on them, years later, that I could and should have done much better things. I was emotionally unavailable while sexually available, self-centered and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings and that is something I truly, deeply regret,” Gaiman writes.
Neil Gaiman has signed comic book series and literary successes such as “American Gods”, “Good Omens” and “The Sandman” which were transformed into television successes. His 2002 short story “Coraline” was animated in stop motion by Henry Selick (“A Nightmare Before Christmas”) and Laika, offering a “horror tale” with hints of parental neglect. , which received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Most of the charges against the author relate to cases where he, now 65, was over 40 years old and divided his time between the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
His fame spread during a time period that favored the development of dark stories and uncomfortable, surreal worlds, something that probably could not happen today, in the age of influencers and the quick profit of publishing houses on TikTok. After the accusations against him became public, many of Gaiman’s professional projects have been canceled or “frozen”.
With information from New York Magazine, Variety, BBC and Medium
