Best-selling British author Neil Gaiman issued a statement Wednesday denying he had any non-consensual sexual relations after a magazine this week published allegations from several women accusing him of sexual assault.
He 64-year-old author of “The Sandman” The “American Gods” comic book and novel series was responding to a New York magazine article which detailed allegations of assault, abuse and coercion made by eight women.
The accusations of four of them were broadcast in July in a Tortoise Media podcast.
Gaiman said he had seen stories about him circulate on the Internet for months with “horror and dismay.”
“As I read this latest collection of stories, there are moments I half recognize and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened alongside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I’ve never had non-consensual sex with anyone. Never,” Gaiman posted on the social media platform Tumblr.
Gaiman said he had read the message exchanges he had with his accusers. They still read as “two people who enjoy completely consensual sexual relations and want to see each other again,” he said.
“And I also realize, looking at them, years later, that I could and should have done much better. I was not emotionally available while I was sexually available, I was 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’s something I really deeply regret,” Gaiman said.
Most of the allegations relate to times when Gaiman was 40 years old or older and living in the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
One of the accusers, Scarlett Pavlovich, told New York Magazine that she met Gaiman through his his then wife, the American artist Amanda Palmer, on an island in New Zealand where the couple lived with their son in 2022.
Pavlovich alleges that Gaiman abused her multiple times since the night they met.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they publicly identify themselves.
Some of Pavlovich’s accusations were made public six months earlier on the podcast. She told the magazine that she filed a police report in January 2023 accusing Gaiman of sexual assault.
New Zealand police did not say this week whether Gaiman was or had been under investigation.
“In general, the police cannot respond to inquiries seeking to establish whether specific people are or have been under police investigation. Additionally, anyone who makes a police complaint has a right to privacy,” New Zealand police told the AP in an email Tuesday.
Messages from the AP to Gaiman’s agent, his office and Bloomsbury, publisher of several of his recent books, were not returned.
Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, which have Gaiman-related projects scheduled for this year, have not responded to messages from the AP.
Several of Gaiman’s works have been converted into movies and television shows.
‘This article may contain information published by third parties, some details of this article were extracted from the following source: celebrity.land’
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