Production linked to author Neil Gaiman is halted amid sexual assault claims

LOS ANGELES – The production of a movie based on a book by noted British author Neil Gaiman has been paused by Disney amid

allegations that five women have made against him

relating to conduct from 1986 to 2022, including one woman who said he groped her on a tour bus in 2013 and later paid her US$60,000 (S$77,000).

The women shared their allegations, which included claims of sexual assault, groping and kissing, on the podcast Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman. Gaiman, 63, has told the podcast he denies any wrongdoing.

The allegations played a role in pausing the production of The Graveyard Book, an adaptation of the eponymous young-adult novel by Gaiman, according to a person at Disney. But the allegations were not the sole reason that the production, which was in development, was paused. Disney would not provide any additional reasons.

Another production related to Gaiman has been cancelled for unspecified reasons.

Dead Boy Detectives (2024), a TV series based on a comic book by Gaiman, will not return for a second season, according to Netflix, which declined to share why the series would not return.

There have been no changes to the Netflix series The Sandman (2022 to present), which is based on a separate comic book series by Gaiman.

Amazon would not say whether there would be any changes to Good Omens (2019 to present), a series based on a novel by Gaiman written in collaboration with late English author Terry Pratchett.

The turmoil around the productions linked to Gaiman has come amid the launch of the podcast, which in July and August released six episodes that detail the women’s accounts. The series has drawn widespread attention among fans, in literary circles and in the entertainment industry.

Mr Paul Caruana Galizia, a reporter on the podcast, said in an e-mail that the podcast was produced over more than nine months. The podcast’s reporters reviewed messages and documents shared by the women, and featured interviews with the women.

Two women who spoke to the podcast were identified as Scarlett and K, and could not be reached for comment for this article. Two other women who spoke on the podcast, Caroline Wallner and Julia Hobsbawm, declined to be interviewed. The claims that these four women made on the podcast could not be independently verified by The New York Times.

There are no publicly known lawsuits or open police investigations related to the allegations against Gaiman. He and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Gaiman is the author of dozens of literary works, including the critically acclaimed The Sandman (1989 to 1996) and the novella Coraline (2002), which became an animated film in 2009.

His works have earned numerous accolades, including multiple Hugo Awards, the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of 2023.

The allegations surfaced in early July when Scarlett and K became the first two women to share their experiences on the podcast.

Scarlett told the podcast that she had made a sexual assault report against Gaiman to the police in New Zealand after the two had met in 2022. She was later told by the police that there was not enough evidence to pursue a case, she said on the podcast.

The authorities in New Zealand declined to either comment on or confirm such a report against Gaiman, citing privacy laws in the country.

The most recent woman to come forward on Master with claims against Gaiman has been identified as Claire, a licensed therapist practising in North Carolina. She said she chose to use a pseudonym to protect her therapeutic relationship with her clients, many of whom are also survivors of sexual violence.

Claire told the podcast that Gaiman had groped her and kissed her in the back of a tour bus in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2013. Claire also shared her story on the podcast series Am I Broken: Survivor Stories, which features interviews with survivors of sexual trauma.

The Times interviewed Claire and reviewed text messages and e-mails between her and Gaiman.

‘Consent is not what happened’

Claire told the Master podcast in an episode released on Aug 27 that she first met Gaiman at an event in Asheville, North Carolina, on Sept 16, 2012. She had volunteered to be an usher at the event for The Moth podcast, a stop on its Unchained Tour, which Gaiman had joined.

Gaiman later invited Claire to attend another stop on the tour in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept 19.

After that, they exchanged e-mails and video calls over the course of several months, she said on the podcast. On one instance in July 2013, she said on the podcast, Gaiman tried to initiate phone sex with her.

“The phone sex he initiated was violent and explicit, nothing like the friendly and flirty e-mails and Skype calls that I had gotten used to over the previous months, and the sudden shift in tone made me deeply uncomfortable,” Claire said in an interview with the Times. “But he told me at the beginning of the call that I didn’t need to speak or participate, so I just stayed quiet and let him finish.”

They met later that month at a book event in Nashville. Gaiman was on tour at the time to promote his latest novel, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (2013).

Claire said that before the event, she told Gaiman that she did not want to have sex with him. “He reassured me that I didn’t have to worry and that I was under no obligation to do anything I didn’t want to do,” Claire said.

After the event, Gaiman took Claire to a room on a tour bus and began to kiss and grope her without her consent, she told the podcast.

In the account Gaiman provided to the podcast, he said he tried to kiss Claire while on a bed in the back of the bus. But he stopped when he realised that Claire did not want to be kissed, the podcast reported.

“Consent is not what happened between me and Neil,” Claire told the Times about that encounter. She did not report Gaiman to police.

Claire said that nearly a decade later, in June 2022, she wrote a letter to Gaiman to confront him. After the letter, they had two phone calls, she said.

During the second call, Gaiman offered Claire US$60,000 to be paid over four years, she said. Claire preferred one payment to avoid prolonged contact with him.

The Times reviewed e-mails between Claire and Gaiman about a payment. In August 2022, Claire said she woke up one morning and saw that US$60,000 had been deposited into her bank account. “I recognise now that the money was hush money,” she said.

She was thankful she had never had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with Gaiman, which allowed her to share her story. “I feel grateful not to be trapped the way I was on that tour bus,” she said. NYTIMES