Neil Gaiman’s accusers stand by claims in face of new denial

The women who accused the British writer and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman of sexual abuse and coercive control are standing by their allegations in the face of fresh denials from the author, according to sources close to four of them.

Last week Gaiman, 65, made his first public comments about the claims for more than a year, arguing they are lies that form part of an orchestrated campaign. The women, some of whom now face legal action brought by the author, originally spoke out about their experiences on the Tortoise Media investigative podcast Master in 2024. Tortoise acquired The Observer in 2025.

Writing on his Facebook account, Gaiman, author of bestselling works, including Good Omens and American Gods, said the allegations against him are “simply untrue” and that he is the target of a “smear campaign”.

The author also claimed there are “emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict” the accusations made by some of the seven women who contributed to the podcast. Two further alleged victims later spoke to the New York magazine for an investigation published a year ago.

This weekend one of the nine women who have now gone public about their personal experiences said that she finds Gaiman’s new attempt to “gaslight and dismiss” the testimony of his alleged victims “distasteful in the extreme”.

“He appears to be attempting to silence and intimidate some of us with direct legal action,” she said, before drawing attention to a rallying call Gaiman himself made in 2018 on the subject of the abuse of women when he wrote on Facebook that, “Men must not close our eyes and minds to what happens to women in this world. We must fight, alongside them, for them to be believed, at the ballot box & with art & by listening, and change this world for the better.”

Last week Gaiman directed his readers to an anonymous blogger on Substack who has repeatedly cast doubt on the women behind the claims and criticised the journalists who have written about them. The blogger, who has been reported to be the British leftwing campaigner Chris Court-Dobson, has posted video footage from the phone of one of Gaiman’s accusers, his former nanny, Scarlett Pavlovich, to suggest her allegations were unfair.

The journalist Rachel Johnson, co-reporter on The Master, told The Observer she is “surprised Gaiman is resting his entire defence on the texts and videos from his victim, Scarlett Pavlovich, when anyone who knows anything about abuse victims knows they very often can be found to have sent fawning, or even loving, messages to their abuser.

“It is the only way they can make sense of what has happened to them or try to make the best of it, especially when the abuser is their employer.”

Last week Gaiman attacked coverage of the claims against him, saying he had been “astonished to see how much of the reporting was simply an echo chamber, and how the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored”.

Johnson has defended the quality of the original Tortoise investigation into his alleged abuse, saying: “It beggars belief that Gaiman would choose to point to a completely anonymous blog that attempts to smear the journalists covering the story at a time when the abuse of women by men in powerful positions is in the news.”

Photograph by Ulf Andersen/Getty Images