Other women have made allegations of sexual assault against the author Neil Gaiman raised. Including a woman who worked as a babysitter for Neil Gaiman. The report in New York Magazinereleased early Monday morning, offers an in-depth look into Gaiman’s life, his marriage and his split from Palmer. As well as the allegations of sexual assault and abuse that were first made against the author last year.
Eight of Gaiman’s accusers spoke in the story. Including four that came before her allegations in the podcast series Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman of 2024, although the article focuses primarily on the allegations made by former nanny Scarlett Pavlovich. The New York Magazine also reviewed texts and emails between the women and friends, as well as messages exchanged between Gaiman and the women.
Gaiman himself did not comment on the article. However, he denied several specific allegations through his legal representatives. Gaiman also denied the previous allegations against him. And claimed all of his relationships were consensual. Palmer also did not comment on the article, but several of her friends did. Representatives for Gaiman did not immediately respond to requests for comment Rolling Stones for a comment.
She claims that Gaiman raped, assaulted and humiliated her multiple times
Pavlovich, who struck up a friendship with Palmer in June 2020, began working as a nanny for Gaiman and Palmer in New Zealand in February 2022 (the couple finalized their divorce later that same year). She claims that Gaiman raped, assaulted and humiliated her multiple times. Among other things, in a small hotel room where Gaiman and Palmer’s son was also playing on an iPad.
The first alleged assault occurred on the first day she was babysitting, according to Pavlovich. Gaiman and Palmer’s son was at a playdate most of the day, so Gaiman offered to take her a bath in a clawfoot tub in the backyard, according to Pavlovich. She did this. But was surprised when Gaiman came back naked and allegedly got into the tub with her and asked Pavlovich to sit on her lap.
And I said, ‘No, no’
“The next part is really amorphous,” Pavlovich said the New York. ‘But I can tell you that he stuck his fingers right up my ass and tried to put his penis up my ass. And I said, ‘No, no.’ Then he tried to rub his penis between my breasts and I said ‘no’ too. Then he asked if he could cum on my face and I said no. But he did it anyway. He said, “Call me ‘Master’ and I’ll come.” He said, “Be a good girl. You’re a good little girl.”
Soon after, Palmer asked, according to text messages sent by new York Pavlovich didn’t just check whether she would babysit again. But also whether she would stay in the house in the foreseeable future. Pavlovich, who was broke and had struggled with homelessness in the past, accepted.
She also admitted feeling confused after the attack, saying: “You don’t think linearly or logically. But the mind tries to process it in the best way possible.”
“I’m so hungry”
After accepting Palmer’s offer, Pavlovich texted Gaiman: “I’m consumed with thoughts of you, of the things you’re going to do to me. I’m so hungry. What a terrible creature you have made me.”
While Palmer and Gaiman were divorcing at the time, Palmer’s friends said that Palmer “still had some faith in [Gaimans] had decency,” the magazine said. They even warned Gaiman to stay away from Pavlovich. “I distinctly remember her saying, ‘You could really hurt this person and break them; Keep your hands off her,’” said a friend, who is not named in the story.
However, according to Pavlovich, Gaiman attacked her on several occasions. She accused Gaiman of forcing her to perform oral sex while his penis was stained with urine, while in another case he allegedly pushed his penis into her mouth with such force that Pavlovich vomited. She told the magazine that Gaiman then ordered her to lick the vomit from his lap and the couch.
Gaiman forced her to perform oral sex
However, according to Pavlovich, Gaiman attacked her on several occasions. She claims Gaiman forced her to perform oral sex while his penis was covered in urine, and once allegedly forced his penis into her mouth with such force that Pavlovich vomited. Gaiman then allegedly ordered her to lick the vomit from his lap and the couch.
She also accused Gaiman of beating her with his belt and then anally raping her. First without lubricant and then with butter as lubricant. Afterward, Gaiman allegedly called Pavlovich a “slave” and told her to “clean him up.” Pavlovich initially refused, to which Gaiman allegedly replied, “Are you defying your master?” Pavlovich said she “had to lick my own shit.”
“Master Neil Gaiman”
Other women have also testified that Gaiman ordered them to call him “Master.” Pavlovich even claims that after a week of babysitting, Gaiman and Palmer’s son also demanded that she call him “Master.” Gaiman is said to have once told his child: “But, but, Scarlett is not a slave. No, you’re not allowed to do that.”
However, according to Pavlovich, Gaiman seemed to have no boundaries with his son. She claimed that she was once sitting with Gaiman and the boy as they watched a television show. Gaiman allegedly put his arm around both of them and then grabbed her breasts under Pavlovich’s shirt.
The incident at the hotel is said to have occurred on February 19, 2022. The story goes that Gaiman sometimes took his son to a hotel for a night as a reward. And this time, Pavlovich claims, he asked her to look after him while he got a massage. Later that evening, while the boy was playing on his iPad, Gaiman pulled Pavlovich onto the lone double bed in the room, placed the blanket over them both and began having sex with her while talking to his son. Pavlovich said she mouthed to Gaiman, “What the hell are you doing?” She remembers him telling his son, “You should really get off the iPad.”
Neil Gaiman denied the allegations
Afterward, Pavlovich claimed Gaiman went into the bathroom, urinated on his hand, returned to the bed and told Pavlovich to “lick it.” Gaiman then allegedly returned to the bathroom naked from the waist down and demanded oral sex from Pavlovich before she could leave while the door was still open.
Neil Gaiman denied the allegations through his legal representatives, calling them “false, not to mention reprehensible.”
Pavlovich said she eventually told Palmer about some of these alleged incidents (including the ones in the bathroom and the hotel room), but did not describe them as sexual assaults at the time. According to a friend of Palmer’s, musician Lance Horne, Palmer called Gaiman that night and asked about the alleged incident in the hotel room and whether her son had been wearing headphones. Horne said Gaiman responded “no” and then hung up.
Pavlovich shared a text message she subsequently received from Gaiman: “Amanda told me that you were going through a hard time and were really mad at me for what we did. I feel terrible about it. Do you want to talk about it? Is there anything I can do to make it right?” Pavlovich said she had hoped to rectify the situation, replying the next day: “Hey. We’ll talk soon… I hope you’re well.”
“Didn’t you see that coming from afar?”
Pavlovich also spoke about Gaiman with a friend named Misha Anaru. Both Anaru and her partner, Kris Taylor, a doctor of psychology who has lectured on coercion, consent and rape, said they believed Gaiman raped Pavlovich, although Pavlovich did not use that word or “sexual assault” to describe it describe what happened. Anaru shared texts between herself and Palmer in which Anaru said that “the majority of my anger is directed at Neil” but also expressed her dismay at Palmer for putting Pavlovich in this situation. “Didn’t you see that coming from afar?” Anaru wrote.
In another text exchange between Pavlovich and Gaiman, Gaiman mentioned Anaru’s texts that Palmer had allegedly told him about. “I’m a monster at this and Amanda seems to have totally bought it,” Gaiman wrote. He also apologized for bringing “any upset” into Pavlovich’s life, adding: “I thought we were a good thing and a very amicable thing.”
“It was amicable (and wonderful!)”
Pavlovich said she felt “separated from everyone else” at the time and was worried about upsetting Gaiman. She wrote back to him: “It was consensual (and wonderful!),” adding that Anaru was “triggered by something I think.”
Pavlovich’s accusations, like others against Gaiman, often involve acts related to BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism). While several of Gaiman’s accusers say they became involved with Gaiman at times, they also allege that he often crossed the crucial boundaries that BDSM requires: that everyone involved consent to every act.
monkfish
Two women who spoke for the story, who had never spoken to each other, compared Gaiman to an anglerfish luring its prey with a bioluminescent lightbulb: “Instead of a light,” one said, “he would dangle a floppy-haired, soft-spoken Brit.” .”
Another woman who spoke for the story, Kendra Stout, says she met Gaiman when she was 18 in 2003. “He spoke at length about the dominant and submissive relationship he wanted me to have,” Stout said, although he claimed he never asked what she wanted, nor did they have any “safe words,” “aftercare,” or “Boundaries” are established, which are standard elements of BDSM negotiations. Stout said Gaiman once penetrated her with his finger and penis while she had a painful urinary tract infection, and she told him “no” while doing so. She filed a police report against Gaiman last October. (A spokesman for Gaiman did not immediately respond to requests for comment Rolling Stones for a comment.)
Criminal charges against Gaiman
Pavlovich filed his own criminal complaint against Gaiman in New Zealand in January 2023, accusing him of sexual assault. A spokesman said the “matter is closed.”