Sandman creator Neil Gaiman denies allegations of sexual harassment

Neil Gaiman, the creator of queer favorite comics and television series, including The Sandman And A good omenhas rejected allegations of sexual assault made by two women.

One of the 23-year-old women claimed she was sexually assaulted by the bestselling British author in a bathtub at his New Zealand home in 2022, just hours after the two first met. The woman was employed as a nanny for Gaiman’s children.

A second woman claimed she was subjected to “rough and painful” sex that she “neither wanted nor enjoyed” during her relationship with Gaiman, two years after they met at a fan book signing in 2003. The woman was 20 when the relationship began.

Both women were in a consensual relationship with Gaiman, now 63, at the time of the alleged assaults, according to Tortoise Media, which published the allegations on Wednesday (July 3) in a podcast series titled. Master: The allegations against Neil Gaiman.

Although the relationships were consensual, the women alleged that Gaiman engaged in sadomasochistic acts and told them to call him “master.” The 23-year-old woman claimed that in one of these incidents, what she experienced was “so painful and so brutal” that she lost consciousness.

“The pain was heavenly,” she said. After she asked him to stop, “he laughed and said I needed to be punished and used his belt on me,” she told podcast host, radio presenter and journalist Rachel Johnson.

Gaiman’s relationship with the 23-year-old lasted several weeks before he left New Zealand to travel to the UK.

The woman, who met Gaiman at a book signing, claimed the author penetrated her in an incident in Cornwall in 2007, despite her begging him not to because she was suffering from a painful infection. The incident left her “screaming” in pain, she claimed.

Gaiman, also known for his fantasy novel American Godsstrongly denies the women’s allegations and insists that all sexual acts were consensual.

In his response to the 23-year-old woman, Gaiman told Tortoise that the couple only “cuddled” and “made out” in the bathtub in New Zealand and that only “consensual digital penetration” occurred in the weeks that followed.

In his response to the other allegation, he said the claim had “troubled” him and denied any unlawful conduct.

Tortoise reported that there is an ongoing complaint against the author with the New Zealand police.

Police said they had made “several attempts to speak to key individuals in this investigation and those efforts are ongoing.” Gaiman said they had not accepted his “offer of assistance.”