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.
Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/dfXCj
I met him very briefly in 1995, same San Diego comic con trip when I met Stan Lee, James Robinson, Wade Von Grawbadger, Will Eisner, and Shannon Wheeler.
I didn’t get the creepy vibe from him then, but then again it would have been 25 years before these allegations, at a convention, and I’m not a vulnerable woman.
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.
Wait what happen with Amanda Palmer? I’ve looked her stuff for a while what did she do?
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.
God, she was one of my favorite artists. This is really crushing to learn. It’s so counter to everything she seemed to stand for.
And fuck, Ampersand no longer feels like an empowering song about marriage.
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.
That’s awful. I had no idea :(
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.
That’s really sad and disappointing
She was married to him and enabled him.
I never liked her. She always struck me as the worst kind of drama club narcissist.
burn the witch!
Wow. Several of the instances described are quite clearly rape; with some horrible scarring and degrading stuff through in; exploiting power-imbalance to make it possible. What I struggle to fully understand though are the text messages mentioned in the story. Gaiman argues that there was consent, and there are things said in those text messages that might support him. But the other circumstances, and the pattern of behaviour across multiple victims surely is enough to overrule that.
Pleasing your abuser and even returning to them because all you have ever known is abuse and they are showing you attention is extremely common. This situation sounds like one of those.
Edit: In the article they also point out that she didn’t actually think of it as rape until she described the situation to others. Which is something I have heard more than one other rape victim say.
God, barf.
I was one of those sad goth kids clinging to the dresden dolls through my turbulent adolescence. After palmer met this nutsack her whole vibe changed. I mourned the loss of an era and ultimately left it all behind. I can’t even begin to fathom what kind of… Mind-shattering nightmare that would be, someone you connected with on that level, being the intersection in your life between “the before times” and one of the most traumatic things that can happen to someone. Fuck.
Having read the whole article, I’m not entirely sure Amanda Palmer comes out smelling of roses either - the way the last few paragraphs are written make me feel she’s covering up for him, and those lyrics read like she’s got it in for her.
Welp, that’s yet another maker of incredible art that turned out to be an absolute monster. Fucking hell.
If what he says about The Ocean at the End of the Lane about the kid representing him is true, then he’s just another case of keeping a vicious cycle of abuse going. He should’ve sought psychological help. Hell, he should seek psychological help now, the media would love to write about his RL redemption.
Serving for his rape crimes would also be nice.
I was just thinking about how people that are idolized like David Bowie and Bob Dylan are going to have their legacies ruined when all their crimes come to light
That’s some sad reading. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, from the point where the train crashes back to where the company forces an engineer to cut corners on the design.
Legal classification: probably rape, definitely sexual assault.
An enabling factor: wealth (he was in a position to influence other’s well-being economically, offer hush money and sign non-disclosure agreements).
“‘I’m a very wealthy man,’” she remembers him saying, “‘and I’m used to getting what I want.’”
An excuse: BDSM. The author of the article is correct to note:
BDSM is a culture with a set of long-standing norms, the most important of which is that all parties must eagerly and clearly consent
As for the search for the origin of his behaviour… I think they’re on the right track. Like a former child soldier who carries a war inside them, Gaiman has probably been carrying a lot inside.
In 1965, when Neil was 5 years old, his parents, David and Sheila, left their jobs as a business executive and a pharmacist and bought a house in East Grinstead, a mile away from what was at that time the worldwide headquarters for the Church of Scientology. Its founder, the former science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, lived down the road from them from 1965 until 1967, when he fled the country and began directing the church from international waters, pursued by the CIA, FBI, and a handful of foreign governments and maritime agencies. David and Sheila were among England’s earliest adherents to Scientology.
/…/
Palmer began asking Gaiman to tell her more about his childhood in Scientology. But he seemed unable to string more than a few sentences together. When she encouraged him to continue, he would curl up on the bed into a fetal position and cry. He refused to see a therapist.
Reading this, it seems obvious that Gaiman developed his behaviour due to trauma during childhood and youth - and has been exhibiting behaviour patterns that became normalized for him during time in the cult.
As for people whom he assaulted, it seems that they too carry a pattern - they were vulnerable at the time. Some had already experienced violence on themselves. Which, it seems - often hadn’t been resolved, but had become normalized. They were not the kind of people whose “no” is followed by physical self-defense or the full weight of legal options - and Gaiman understood enough to recognize: with them, he could get away with doing things.
She didn’t consider reaching out to her own family. Her parents had divorced when she was 3, and Pavlovich had grown up splitting time between their households. Violence, Pavlovich tells me, “was normalized in the household.”
Well, what can I say about it…
…it is customary that accusations be investigated by cops (who hopefully cannot be bought) and presented as charges to a court of law. The defendant should have a chance to deny or excuse their actions, but if deemed guilty, is required to give up time or resources either as compensation or punishment. A court could make lesser or greater punishment dependent on taking action to fix one’s behaviour traits - seeking assistance and not offending again. Those harmed should be offered assistance by their societies.
I’m wondering if the editor doesn’t want the article to be read. It starts off so lengthy and boring, I was ready to give up after the first 3 or 4 paragraphs, and just didn’t manage to finish thanks to the prosaic writing style. Hope some actual news outlet picks it up and sticks to the facts.
Yeah that article is a slog. It’s 5-10x longer than it needs to be. I get they’re trying to set the tone, but holy shit.
It’s a “long form” story. Sometimes you need that to provide context. Also it helps treat people like people, not just like statistics.
Thank you, I thought it was just me. I got through a bit more than you it seems but I still started skipping paragraphs at a time before giving up.
awful
When the initial allegations came out I was shocked. A week later I was having breakfast with a good friend of mine and his wife. The wife worked in the comic book industry and we’d talked about Gaiman before. I brought up the allegations and she told me that no one who rubbed elbowed with his circle were shocked. Apparently he already had something of a reputation.
This is what gets me every time. Once this goes public everyone starts saying, ah yeah, no wonder, they had a reputation already, I knew they were sketchy and so on. So where the fuck where you (not you Hasherm0n, the people bringing this up) all this time? This could have ended so much earlier if people would speak up and make it more public.
Giving off bad vibes isn’t a crime.
Speaking out against the rich and powerful often does not work out well for the person who does it. They would be fighting a very rich and very successful man with a legion of extremely devoted fans. Women who have been direct victims of powerful men have spoken out about it and been destroyed for it (see Anita Hill).
Or all the countless women and Harvey Weinstein before the 2017 NY Times piece.
That’s the logic of a witch hunt. I mean, obviously there are behaviors so suspicious you’d feel almost complicit not to report them. But a lot of the times all we have are the subtle impressions built up by our unconscious brain and it’s not until the answer is shown that it all clicks into place and what once was hidden is now so obvious.
There is a big difference between knowing a persons reputation and knowing their actions. Sometimes a person with a bad rep does small things you pick up on that reinforces the feeling. But you still don’t actually know enough to accuse them.
It’s a big deal accusing a powerful person. They are usually going to deny it and people are going to ask for proof. If all you have is rumors and a feeling it only hurts you.
It took several women coming forward with what happened to them to get the public on their side. Imagine trying to accuse him when all you had was rumors.
Its a big deal accusing a powerful person
Terry Crews is a former NFL player and all around “dude I would not want to mess with”
Even still he was hesitant to tell anyone he was abused, what does that tell you about the system
This is certainly going to have an effect on Tumblr.
It’s not new information but mostly new details - tumblr has been dealing (or really, trying to deal) with this since July.
I have enjoyed Gaiman’s writing, also the Sandman show was excellent, but I am glad that in this era that I’m not the type of person to be a fan of anybody. I guess it is natural to ascribe virtue and look up to people who create thing you resonate with, but there’s no reason to think someone who wrote a book is worth praising or emulating other than in the book you liked.
Welp, I guess if I still want to read any of his books, there will probably be a ton of them at the thrift store
Libraries are free.
There’s also the Libby app
Annual vpn subscription: $75
20 TB home server: $450
Enjoying the art while the shitheel artist doesn’t profit: Priceless
When you want an artist to benefit from their creative works, support them directly. For everything else, there’s piracy
I dunno. Pirating it is still giving them attention. Talking about it, bringing them up, giving them relevance. You’re paying for it with mental space. But when you straight up shun them, they wither away.
Like the great Terry Pratchett (rip), I see them like Small Gods: you give them power when you believe they exist.
GNU Terry Pratchett
I don’t think I would introduce someone to NG’s work if they were unfamiliar with him. So in that sense, yes, talking about them gives them relevance. However, i disagree that pirating in some way benefits the artist. Promotion does.
Where I do see an alignment with Sir Terry is from Reaper Man. Until the person’s works come to a finish, they continue to live. The thing is, will they live on loved, like Terry Pratchett, or hated, like Jimmy Saville. I didn’t believe in hell. But I think, particularly for an artist or entertainer, the knowledge that after you die your memory will be hated, well, that’s a living hell of it’s own for a certain type of person. I genuinely hope Harvey Weinstein the rapist is one of those people.
But back to the point. I’m not paying anything in mental energy if I watch Sandman again. If NG is a cunt, it doesn’t change the fact that Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, is a BAMF and I’ll watch the shit out of his show
You people cry shitheel with so little substantiating evidence.
Is this you? What is your evidence that everyone does what you claim they do?
What?
You are arguing that you can’t know things other people tell you. So how do you know that everyone fakes it? Did everyone tell you? Every single person? Are they all telling the truth?
It’s just weak evidence. Hearsay.
That’s literally what you’re arguing against believing in this thread.
I guess it’s different when you do it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ETA: man I’m glad i responded as i did, the poster I was replying to is clearly a troll.
15 accusations, voicemails of him setting up hush money payments, NDAs, none of this points to lacking merit. 1 woman, yeah it could be false or misleading. 15? Either this is very very likely to be true, or someone with tons of money has convinced a huge swath of real people in his life and not total strangers to publicly destroy him in a conspiracy that would be on the scale of a military operation. How much money would it take for you to knowingly lie about an innocent person you babysat for, who, if this isn’t true, is lovely to know by all professional accounts. What kind of dollar figure would that take? Would you be willing to do this without possessing the money already? Would you demand that in advance? Who would contact you to get you into this conspiracy? Certainly not the benefactor. How would they know you wouldn’t flip on them in a heartbeat? Or simply out them to begin because you’re not a horrible person. 15 times. Successfully. That’s what this requires. People who are known to have worked for him. That’s you’re pool. That’s a very shallow pool. 15 successful payoffs with no deserters or whistleblowers? Accusing someone of a crime isn’t fruitful. You don’t get fame or money out of this, particularly if you have 15 victims on your side sharing the supposed limelight and potential pay day. And why if that’s all they wanted, why would they go further than blackmail? They were already getting paid off. More women came out after the first 5? More? 10 people were like oh, they are getting 1/5th of the spotlight. I want that. I’ll get 1/15th of a spotlight! All I have to do is ruin the life of the rich guy paying me off right now. It makes NO sense.
I actually never met Neil Gaiman, or the people making the accusations, or the person who wrote the article. How about you?
Do you have to meet the meteorologist and check his data and model to believe their weather forecast? Do you have to meet every single politician, scientist, news reporter, just everyone, to believe any news at all?
If I’m going to revile somebody, yes.
Is your bar that you have to meet the victim to believe them?
Actually yes. Before I condemn somebody I insist upon meeting the fellow, interviewing the witnesses and seeing the evidence.
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With what expertise and training? Do we all have to wait until big_fat_fluffy has concluded his investigations before we can trust that any criminal activity has occurred?
You’re THIS ridiculous? OK. Utterly pointless. Next time lead with ‘‘I’m insane and don’t believe anything or anyone unless I’ve personally met them myself’’ save everyone some time.
This was a very disturbing read. I’m glad some of the survivors found each and other and are coming out with story, and I hope wierdo gets prison time so he won’t be able to do this to anyone else
This article from 2017 is worth a read for anyone trying to figure out whether/how to separate the art from the artist.
What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? By Claire Dederer, Paris Review, November 20, 2017 https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/20/art-monstrous-men/
I never read this and I really appreciate the share.
Some parts that spoke to me:
This, I think, is what happens to so many of us when we consider the work of the monster geniuses—we tell ourselves we’re having ethical thoughts when really what we’re having is moral feelings.
Yeah. Guilty.
“The heart wants what it wants.” (Steve Allen when discussing Soon-Yi)
It was one of those phrases that never leaves your head once you’ve heard it: we all immediately memorized it whether we wanted to our not. Its monstrous disregard for anything but the self. Its proud irrationality. Woody goes on: “There’s no logic to those things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.”
I moved on her like a bitch.
I found this fascinating. While I was confused by Allen’s statement and why women found it so disgusting, the Trump parallel made it click.
A great work of art brings us a feeling. And yet when I say Manhattan makes me feel urpy, a man says, No, not that feeling. You’re having the wrong feeling. He speaks with authority: Manhattan is a work of genius. But who gets to say?
Going back to Gaiman, his work is held to a very high standard. But to say you dislike it, you will be met with confusion or even anger. And this is where this piece really spoke to me.
She mentioned a short story she’d just written and published. “Oh, you mean the most recent occasion for your abandoning me and the kids?” asked the very smart, very charming husband. The wife had been a monster, monster enough to finish the work. The husband had not.
A tangent in the essay about women writers. I found it fascinating that when a fuckface like Elon Musk abandoning his more than dozen kids can still rise the ranks. but God forbid a woman does the same.
There really is no answer to this that the author provides.
The tangent I shared is her last thought: does great art only come from monsters? I think a lot about other creative works, painters, comedians film makers… Who does some wild shit but not nearly to the level of Gaiman’s accusations.
Also, like all summaries, read it yourself and find your own takeaways. It’s the nuance, not the summary, that has value.
The tangent I shared is her last thought: does great art only come from monsters? I think a lot about other creative works, painters, comedians film makers… Who does some wild shit but not nearly to the level of Gaiman’s accusations.
Nah. It’s well known that power corrupts and being a great artist is a form of power, so that skews things perhaps, but I really don’t think there’s a direct correlation.
I’m not convinced that power corrupts, I believe it reveals.
