Neil Gaiman denies allegations of sexual assault by two women

Neil Gaiman — the best-selling author whose work includes comic book series The sand, and the novels Good omens and American Gods — has denied allegations of sexual assault made against him by two women he was in relationships with at the time, Tortoise Media References.

The claims were made during Tortoise's four-part podcast Teacher: The allegations against Neil Gaiman, which was released on Wednesday. In it, the women claim she has “rough and degrading sex” with the author, which the women claim was not always consensual.

One of the women, 23-year-old Scarlett, worked as a nanny for his child. She claimed Gaiman assaulted her in February 2022, hours after they first met, while she was in the bathroom at his home in New Zealand. Gaiman told the outlet that he and Scarlett “hugged” and “made out” in the bathroom and that it was consensual. he added that in their three-week sexual relationship, they only engaged in digital penetration.

Scarlett claims that while they were in a consensual relationship, Gaiman also sexually assaulted her with non-consensual “cruel and degrading penetrative sexual acts,” according to the network's description of the investigation. In one incident, the pain “was so excruciating and so violent” that she lost consciousness. “The pain was heavenly,” he said. When she asked him to stop, he “laughed and said I should be punished and used his belt on me,” she told the podcast, via The Telegraph. Gaiman denied the claim in Tortoise.

The second woman, who goes by the name K, was 18 when she first met him in 2003 at a book signing in Florida. She claims they began a romantic relationship when she was 20 and he was in his forties. While in a relationship, she claims she was subjected to hard and painful sex she “neither wanted nor liked”. At one point, he claimed he penetrated her despite her objection because she was in the middle of a UTI. the incident left her “screaming” in pain. Gaiman denied K's claims and told Tortoise he was “bothered” by the allegations.

Gaiman's reps didn't immediately return Rolling rockrequests for comment.

According to Tortoise's investigation, K did not file a police report. Scarlett filed a complaint with New Zealand police in October 2022.

Gaiman told Tortoise that the police did not follow up on his offer to assist with the investigation into the complaint, stating that this showed the complaint's lack of substance. However, New Zealand police told the agency that they had made “numerous attempts to speak to key individuals in this investigation and those efforts remain ongoing,” adding that “there are many factors that need to be considered in this case, including the location of all parties'.