Warning: This article contains mentions of sexual violence and assault.
NEIL GAIMAN, the author of beloved books such as “Coraline,” “Good Omens,” and “The Sandman” comic book series, has recently been accused of sexual assault by two different women that he’d been in relationships with in the past.
These accusations came from two women named Scarlett, 23, and K, 18, in a four-part podcast series from Tortoise Media called “Master: The allegations against Neil Gaiman.”
Scarlett is a former nanny who’d worked for him in the past. K, on the other hand, met him because she was a fan. They stated that he had violated their boundaries after he engaged in rough, degrading sex with them whilst in the relationship.
Gaiman has since denied these allegations.
Scarlet’s story
Scarlett was allegedly assaulted by Gaiman when they first met in his home in New Zealand in February of 2022. After they shared a bath together, they then got into a relationship that lasted three weeks.
While Gaiman stated that they only engaged in consensual digital penetration, Scarlett says he engaged in rough, degrading penetrative sexual acts with her. In times that he said that the two only cuddled, Scarlett’s accounts of the events stated otherwise.
One such instance happens at the Sky City Grand Hotel in Auckland. Gaiman explained that they weren’t meant to stay for long in the room, but they ended up staying in bed and cuddling under the sheets.
Scarlett’s account of that day, on the other hand, claims that Gaiman went into the bathroom, urinated on his hand, then placed his hand around her face and made him clean it up.
She added: “He made me vomit multiple times, and then I would get punished and have to clean him up, or if the anal sex was too painful and I was basically screaming, he would get really, really angry, and I would get punished and have to clean him.”
She recalled having to Google whether or not anal sex was safe with the way they were doing it because he did not use condoms when penetrating her, and because she was “always bleeding.”
There was also one instance, she states, wherein she passed out due to how painful it felt when he was penetrating her anally.
In their messages with one another, Scarlett also shows that she consented to what happened between her and Gaiman. Editor and report Paul Caruana Galizia, however, also takes note of the fact that given the power dynamics between the two, it’s hard to establish whether or not that consent was freely given – particularly if one party is much more junior to the other, it’s much harder to say no.
K’s story
Meanwhile, Neil Gaiman says that K is someone he was in a romantic relationship with for two years. He also states that he never engaged in any non-consensual acts with her.
“I never wanted any of the stuff he did to me, including the more violent stuff,” she said in the podcast.
“But I did consent to it.”
They met at a book signing in Florida when K was only 18, while he was 43. She and her friends later on started emailing Gaiman, and he then started inviting them to dinner whenever he was in Florida. At one point, he invited them into his home to spend the night and then asked them to go to bed with him.
At this point, he was still married.
He then asked if they wanted to have sex, to which they said no, and he accepted. He did, however, start to show interest in K when she turned 20. He started talking to her more often, as well as giving her a webcam and inviting her out to dinner.
They then started sleeping with one another consensually. He would go on to invite her to his events, but K noted that she would ignore her during them. She was also the same age as his daughter when this relationship started.
She also experienced many of the things Scarlett experienced, such as consent, rough sex, emotional manipulation, and exploitation.
“Straight away, he was very unconcerned with my pleasure, and he certainly didn’t have anything like lube around, and I didn’t know enough,” she recalled.
“The first time we had sex I remember lying there, and there was music on, and there was a song that I really loved – it was a very romantic, loving song – and I was listening to it while this very painful act was happening to me.”
She described their sex as brutal and painful. There were also times wherein he would hit her, and she would say that it was too hard, only for him to say that he knew she liked it. Like Scarlett, he made her call him “Master.”
Constantly, he would tell her that she liked it.
On one trip together, she had gotten her period and also contracted a severe urinary tract infection. She stated that Gaiman had wanted to fool around with her; she agreed, but said that he could not put anything in her vagina, because it would hurt very badly, and that she would die.
“It didn’t matter; he did it anyway,” she said.
She also felt that sex was something expected of her so that he would “keep her around.”
Gaiman posits that they were in a loving relationship and these non-consensual acts did not happen.
