MANILA, Philippines – English author Neil Gaiman refuted allegations of sexual misconduct thrown against him by several women.
Gaiman broke his silence on Tuesday, January 14, through an entry on his website and said he has “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone.”
“Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality,” Gaiman said.
Gaiman was the subject of a New York Magazine story titled “There Is No Safe Word,” which detailed the stories of eight women who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the 64-year-old.
One of the women, Scarlett Pavlovich, said she met Gaiman in 2022 at his house in New Zealand after being asked by his former wife, American musician Amanda Palmer, to babysit their child.
Pavlovich alleged Gaiman offered her to take a bath in his garden, to which she obliged, only to witness him join her in the tub and sexually assault her.
Gaiman said he does not “accept there was any abuse.”
“As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognize and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen,” Gaiman said.
“I went back to read the messages I exchanged with the women around and following the occasions that have subsequently been reported as being abusive. These messages read now as they did when I received them — of two people enjoying entirely consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again. At the time I was in those relationships, they seemed positive and happy on both sides.”
Gaiman, though, admitted he regrets being “careless with people’s hearts and feelings” in his relationships.
“I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused, and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been,” he said. “It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.”
Gaiman’s much-loved works The Sandman, Good Omens, and American Gods have been adapted into television series.
Recent projects involving Gaiman’s works, however, have hit a snag since allegations of his sexual abuse were publicized, with Disney halting the film adaptation of The Graveyard Book in September. – Rappler.com