How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades.
Warning, this story is really horrific and will be heartbreaking for any fans of his, but Neil Gaiman is a sadistic [not in the BDSM sense] sexual predator with a predilection for very young women.
I didn’t heed the warning and regretted reading the whole thing - there are very detailed and gruesome first hand accounts of his alleged assaults on multiple women. Excellent reporting throughout, which only makes it more sickening.
Also, as a former Amanda Palmer fan, fuck her, too. It’s clear she enabled this and committed, at minimum, wage theft crimes. Both of them deserve to do jail time with even the most generous best-case-scenarios. I’m sure she was also abused by him, but that is not an excuse to abuse other women. Some feminist.
Idk how to format, but I want to save you from reading if you need that. So here’s a brief list of claims in the article:
she frequently and repeatedly recruited homeless, impoverished female fans to provide childcare without any payment
she repeatedly left these women alone with Gaiman, without the child present
she warned Gaiman to “keep his hands off” at least one woman
she said that at least 14 women had come to her for help with Gaiman
she subsequently wrote a song about how much of a chore it was for her to deal with the multiple “suicidal mess”es Gaiman created
she routinely controlled employment/housing of these women and knew Gaiman was, at best, sleeping with them (this cannot be consensual when housing/employment are in the mix)
when notified of an assault that happened with her child present, only questioned whether the child was “wearing headphones”
refused to cooperate with at least one police investigation
refused any material help to assaulted women after repeatedly assuring them she would “take care of” them, get different housing/employment set up, etc.
Just…awful stuff, and this is best case scenario, FFS. She is fucking trash.
Amanda Palmer also routinely didn't pay musicians and other people who worked for her, and defended Jian Ghomeshi the sex predator and abuser. She also faked her own suicide to record her then boyfriend's reaction, who them died of suicide six months later.
Right there with you. I believe Gaiman was using her as a smokescreen for exactly that reason. (I’m being generous and assuming she wasn’t actively and deliberately trafficking women for him.)
And yes, there are a lot of song lyrics / tweets / media that aged like milk for both of them.