British author Neil Gaiman denies ever engaging in non-consensual sex as more accusers come forward
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Best-selling British author Neil Gaiman released a statement Wednesday denying he had ever engaged in non-consensual sex after a magazine this week published allegations from several women, accusing him of sexual assault. The 64-year-old author of “The Sandman” comic book series and novel “American Gods” was responding to a New York Magazine article that detailed allegations of assault, abuse and coercion leveled by eight women. The allegations of four of them had been broadcast in July in a Tortoise Media podcast.
Gaiman said he had watched stories about him circulate on the Internet for months with “horror and dismay.”. “As I read through this latest collection of accounts, there are moments I half-recognise and moments I don’t, descriptions of things that happened sitting beside things that emphatically did not happen. I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever.” Gaiman posted on the social media platform Tumblr.
Gaiman said he had read back message exchanges he had had with his accusers. They still read like “two people enjoying entirely consensual sexual relationships and wanting to see one another again,” he said. “And I also realise, looking through them, years later, that I could have and should have done so much better. I was emotionally unavailable while being sexually available, self-focused and not as thoughtful as I could or should have been. I was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret,” Gaiman said.
