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Bestselling creator Neil Gaiman has denied allegations of sexual misconduct, saying he has “by no means engaged in non-consensual sexual exercise with anybody. Ever.” Allegations made by eight ladies in opposition to the 64-year-old, which embody claims he sexually assaulted a girl in a shower, had been revealed in New York Journal on Monday, with 5 ladies’s claims having first been reported on a Tortoise Media podcast known as Grasp final yr.
In a weblog submit on Tuesday, the British-born The Sandman creator stated he had learn the allegations with “horror and dismay”. He wrote: “I’ve stayed quiet till now, each out of respect for the individuals who had been sharing their tales and out of a want not to attract much more consideration to lots of misinformation.”
“I’ve all the time tried to be a non-public particular person, and felt more and more that social media was the mistaken place to speak about essential private issues. I’ve now reached the purpose the place I really feel that I ought to say one thing. As I learn by means of this newest assortment of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of issues that occurred sitting beside issues that emphatically didn’t occur. I’m removed from an ideal particular person, however I’ve by no means engaged in non-consensual sexual exercise with anybody. Ever,” he wrote.
Gaiman stated he had learn again textual content messages from the time of the alleged incidents and felt they had been “of two individuals having fun with completely consensual sexual relationships”. He stated that whereas studying by means of them, he realised he “may have and may have completed so a lot better,” including he was “not as considerate as I may or ought to have been.”
He continued: “I used to be clearly careless with individuals’s hearts and emotions, and that’s one thing that I actually, deeply remorse. It was egocentric of me. I used to be caught up in my very own story and I ignored different individuals’s. I’ve spent some months now taking an extended, onerous take a look at who I’ve been and the way I’ve made individuals really feel. Like most of us, I’m studying, and I’m making an attempt to do the work wanted, and I do know that that’s not an in a single day course of.”
The creator stated he understood that “not everybody will consider me” and added he can be “doing my perfect to deserve their belief, in addition to the belief of my readers”. He claimed a few of the allegations “merely by no means occurred” whereas others had been “distorted” to “bear no relationship to actuality,” however stated he would “take accountability for any missteps I made.”
Within the New York Journal report, one of many ladies claimed she had been babysitting Gaiman’s five-year-old baby, when she alleged the creator supplied her a shower in his backyard earlier than then becoming a member of her bare, and asking her to take a seat on his lap. She claimed he then sexually assaulted her.
The article claims all the accusers had been keen to interact with Gaiman’s requests to some extent by calling him “grasp,” however the ladies allege that consent and particular BDSM actions, which they are saying occurred, had not been mentioned and agreed on earlier than they occurred.
Gaiman’s representatives had beforehand advised Tortoise Media that “sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism will not be to everybody’s style, however between consenting adults, BDSM is lawful”. A police report accusing Gaiman of sexual assault was made in January 2023, however the investigation was finally dropped.
Gaiman is thought for books similar to Coraline, American Gods and The Sandman, all of which have been tailored for the cinema or tv. Because the allegations first surfaced, a number of movie and TV variations of Gaiman’s tales have reportedly been affected, together with season three of Good Omens – which he collectively wrote with Terry Pratchett – and a movie of The Graveyard E-book.
