Neil Gaiman, the best-selling fantasy author whose works have birthed several hit TV shows, has been sued for sexual assault by a woman who says he raped her multiple times while she worked for his family as a live-in nanny.
Scarlett Pavlovich, in a lawsuit filed on Monday in Wisconsin federal court, brings claims for sexual assault, battery and human trafficking, which center around allegations that he coerced her into forced sexual encounters with him as a condition of her employment. The author has a “decades-long history of sexual misconduct” as alleged by several women, many of whom have signed non-disclosure agreements, the complaint says.
The filing of the lawsuit comes in the wake of DC Comics announcing last month that it would no longer publish adaptations of Gaiman’s works after New York magazine published a cover story detailing his alleged history of sex crimes based on interviews with eight women.
Gaiman has maintained that the sexual encounters were consensual. “Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality,” he wrote last month on his blog.
The lawsuit details violent assaults by Gaiman, starting in 2022 when his wife Amanda Palmer asked Pavlovich to babysit their child at their New Zealand home, according to the complaint. When Pavlovich arrived, Gaiman insisted that she take a bath while he made a call for work. Shortly after, the lawsuit says, Gaiman undressed himself and started to bathe with her.
“Gaiman then penetrated Scarlett’s rectum with his fingers,” the complaint states. After Pavlovich objected, the author “also attempted to penetrate Scarlett’s rectum with his penis.”
The lawsuit details another forced sexual encounter with Gaiman in which Pavlovich lost consciousness due to severe pain after being anally raped, and another in which she was left bleeding after he struck and choked her with a belt.
When she told Gaiman’s wife that she was assaulted, Pavlovich says Palmer expressed no surprise. “Palmer told Scarlett – for the first time – more than a dozen women, including several former employees, had previously come to Palmer about abusive sexual encounters with Gaiman,” the lawsuit reads. Pavlovich, who was hospitalized after a mental health crisis caused by the alleged assaults, was later denied re-entry into the couple’s home.
Throughout her employment as a live-in nanny, Pavlovich alleges she wasn’t paid and was left with no choice to stay because she had no other residence or job opportunity. “Gaiman and Palmer intended to have Scarlett trapped, vulnerable, and penniless,” the lawsuit says, “because that would leave her without a real chance to defend herself or escape.”
Pavlovich says she filed a police report accusing Gaiman of sexual assault, which was dropped after Palmer refused to cooperate with law enforcement, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges that Palmer, who’s named in the complaint, has been aware of her husband’s sexual misconduct since at least 2015. They separated in 2020 and have been locked in a divorce and custody battle.
Upcoming Gaiman book-to-screen adaptations include The Sandman season two at Netflix, the Amazon miniseries Anansi Boys, and the concluding 90-minute episode of Good Omens, also at Amazon. The author has written screenplays for Neverwhere and Mirrormask, penned an episode of Doctor Who, co-wrote Beowulf with Robert Zemeckis and produced the film Stardust.
English (US) ·