Neil Gaiman and Art Monsters

Summary

Infamous Podcast Episode Summary: "Neil Gaiman and Art Monsters"

Episode Details:

• Title: Neil Gaiman and Art Monsters
• Release Date: July 24, 2025
• Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Gabriel Sherman, Natalie Robehmed
• Guest: Lila Shapiro, Journalist and Author
• Production: Campside Media & Sony Music Entertainment

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1. Introduction to the Scandal

Timestamp: [00:01] – [05:00]

Lily Houston Smith opens the episode by setting the stage for an in-depth exploration of a significant scandal involving renowned fantasy author Neil Gaiman and musician Amanda Palmer. The discussion revolves around the disturbing allegations that have emerged, threatening to tarnish the legacies of these two prominent figures in the entertainment industry.

2. Background on Bard College and Its Influential Figures

Timestamp: [02:38] – [03:59]

Lily provides context by describing Bard College, an esteemed liberal arts institution in the Hudson Valley known for its creative ecosystem shaped by long-time president Leon Botstein. She highlights the presence of celebrity professors like Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, emphasizing the school's reputation for fostering artistic talent and attracting the children of celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen and Chevy Chase.

3. Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's Relationship

Timestamp: [04:07] – [06:28]

The episode delves into the personal lives of Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, detailing their open marriage since 2011. Lily recalls anecdotes from her time at Bard College, illustrating the public perception of their relationship and the complexities it introduced within the academic environment.

Notable Quote:

• Lily Houston Smith [04:09]: "Neil does have this intensity to him. Something about his voice, which is known for being this kind of hypnotizing baritone, and also his eye contact, which is unrelenting."

4. The Emergence of Allegations

Timestamp: [06:28] – [17:26]

The podcast transitions to the core issue: allegations of coercive sexual behavior, emotional manipulation, and assault against Neil Gaiman. These accusations, primarily from younger women and mentees, were first highlighted in a Tortoise Media podcast and later expanded upon by Lila Shapiro's investigative reporting for Vulture.

Notable Quotes:

• Neil Gaiman [unknown timestamp]: "I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone ever."
• Lila Shapiro [28:30]: "How do you be in relationship? What is equal, what is not."

5. Lila Shapiro's Investigative Reporting

Timestamp: [17:22] – [35:21]

Lila Shapiro, the journalist who authored the pivotal Vulture article, joins the conversation to shed light on her investigative process and the gravity of the allegations. She discusses the experiences of women like Scarlett Pavlovich, who recounted disturbing encounters with Gaiman, including coercive situations that crossed personal boundaries.

Notable Quote:

• Scarlett Pavlovich [unrelated timestamp]: "There is so much talk about women's hormonal health, but most women are left even more confused about what it means for them and what to do about it."

6. Detailed Accusations and Incidents

Timestamp: [17:26] – [29:44]

Natalie Robehmed provides a comprehensive account of the specific incidents reported by multiple women. These include unwanted sexual advances, demands for submission, and the manipulation of professional and personal relationships. The narrative highlights how Gaiman's influence and the blurred boundaries within his relationships facilitated these abusive behaviors.

Notable Quote:

• Scarlett Pavlovich [unrelated timestamp]: "See, it's a very different power dynamic between a person who's a public figure and a fan."

7. Legal Ramifications and Career Impact

Timestamp: [35:21] – [38:04]

The podcast examines the legal battles ensuing from these allegations, including lawsuits filed by accusers like Caroline Walner, who is suing Gaiman for sexual misconduct. Additionally, the episode explores the professional consequences for Gaiman and Palmer, such as canceled projects and strained collaborations within the entertainment industry.

Notable Quote:

• Natalie Robehmed [37:03]: "The problem for Neil is that his fandom was so shaped by this vision of him as this good guy and champion of women."

8. Public and Fanbase Reaction

Timestamp: [38:04] – [39:40]

Vanessa and Natalie discuss the profound effect these revelations have had on Gaiman's fanbase, emphasizing the challenges of maintaining support when a beloved figure is implicated in such serious misconduct. The discussion underscores the fragility of parasocial relationships and the consequences of idolizing creators without recognizing their potential flaws.

Notable Quote:

• Natalie Robehmed [39:40]: "It's a big problem because if you think about the whole genre world right now and the way this world of conventions and fandom has grown up over the past couple of decades…"

9. Lessons and Takeaways

Timestamp: [38:35] – [39:40]

In the concluding segments, the hosts reflect on the broader implications of the scandal. They highlight the importance of not idolizing creators and being cautious of the blurred lines between personal admiration and professional respect. The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked power and the necessity of holding influential figures accountable.

Notable Quote:

• Lila Shapiro [38:35]: "It's an important lesson as to why we shouldn't trust famous figures who describe themselves as good."

10. Conclusion

Timestamp: [39:40] – [40:34]

The episode wraps up with final thoughts from the hosts and a heartfelt thank you to their guest, Lila Shapiro. They encourage listeners to engage critically with the content and remain vigilant about the behavior of those in positions of power.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Complex Relationships: The open marriage between Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer created a dynamic that, combined with their influential statuses, may have facilitated abusive behaviors.
• Power Dynamics: The scandal underscores the importance of understanding and addressing power imbalances in professional and personal relationships.
• Fan Responsibility: Fans and audiences are reminded to separate the art from the artist and to hold creators accountable for their actions.
• Legal Challenges: The ongoing legal battles highlight the complexities of jurisdiction and the challenges victims face in seeking justice.
• Impact on Career: The allegations have led to significant professional setbacks for Gaiman and Palmer, illustrating the far-reaching consequences of personal misconduct.

Final Thoughts: "Neil Gaiman and Art Monsters" serves as a compelling exploration of how power, influence, and personal relationships intersect, leading to serious ethical and legal implications. The episode invites listeners to critically evaluate the figures they admire and to advocate for accountability and respect within all professional and personal interactions.

Transcript

[Lily Houston Smith]

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[Vanessa]

The light elves are as beautiful as.

[Natalie]

The sun or the stars.

[Vanessa]

Nithavelir, which is sometimes called Svartelfheim, where the dwarfs, who are also known as.

[Natalie]

Dark elves, live beneath the mountains.

[Lily Houston Smith]

But if you're a major culture watcher, you might have heard something about the scandal involving the two of them. Maybe through Tortoise Media's podcast last summer, or through the deeply reported and disturbing Vulture article that came out earlier this year. But if you haven't, here's the rundown. Amanda Palmer is a musician and a performance artist with a cult like fan base. It's followed her from her days in the Dresden Dolls through her wildly successful solo career. When I was at Bard, she taught this sort of immersive experiential course on art and life and emotional risk taking. Now, I didn't take that class, but I actually did take Niels. It was a three week intensive on fantasy writing, which was pretty cool because he's one of the most famous fantasy writers of all time. The Sandman, American Gods. You may have seen the adaptation of his novella Coraline, which is this super creepy stop animation film. The story is about a kind of depressed, angsty young girl who discovers a parallel universe where her parents actually pay attention to her. But something about those parents, the other parents, is a little off.

[Lila Shapiro]

You're just in time for supper, dear.

[Natalie]

You're not my mother.

[Lila Shapiro]

I'm your other mother, silly.

[Lily Houston Smith]

Neil and Amanda married in 2011, and from the start, their marriage was open famously. So famously, in fact, that it was a running joke on campus. Like, I remember this one time, the improv group, because of course there was an improv group, did a sketch where a character playing Neil would keep interrupting scenes just to announce for no reason at all, my wife and I are in an open marriage. It got laughs, but I also found it to be a little uncomfortable, especially when I ended up in that class with him. If you've ever met Neil, he does just have this intensity to him. Something about his voice, which is known for being this kind of hypnotizing baritone, and also his eye contact, which is unrelenting. And at Bard, which, at least when I was there, had a reputation for professors sleeping with students could sometimes feel like there was a bit of a subtext. So it was obviously extremely disturbing when last summer, Tortoise Media broke a huge story about him. In the podcast, multiple women came forward with allegations against Neil of coercive sexual behavior, emotional manipulation, and even assault. These allegations came from fans and mentees, most of whom were much younger than him, about the same age I was when I was a student. The details are really disturbing and a huge blow to his fans, which Vanessa and Natalie are going to talk a lot about with Our guest. Then, back in January, things escalated even further when Vulture published an incredible viral story on the topic. The journalist who wrote it is named Lila Shapiro and she's our guest on this week's episode. Her reporting brought Amanda into the picture in a much darker way. There's been legal action, canceled projects, severed partnerships. But Neil, we should mention, has denied all wrongdoing. He says he's never engaged in non consensual sexual activity with anyone ever. This is also a quote. 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. Now, this is an ongoing story and Lila is going to talk with Vanessa and Natalie about where things stand now. But however things shake out, the details that have come up in the reporting are really damning. So here's Vanessa and Natalie's conversation with Lila Shapiro.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

So you wrote this fantastic story titled There Is no Safe how the Best Selling Fantasy Author Neil Gaiman Hid the Darkest Parts of Himself For Decades. How did this story come to you?

[Natalie]

I am a long time fan of Nils. As a teenager, primarily, I do a lot of work about figures kind of at the center of cultural controversies or murky accusations of varying kinds. I'd done a big profile of Joss Whedon a couple of years ago. It has a lot of similarities.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

Totally. This beloved creator of works that often have sort of a strong female character.

[Natalie]

Yeah, that. Yeah, that really speak to women. Joss Whedon, especially beloved as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, most famously as well as Firefly and the first two Avengers movies. And really seen as this feminist visionary and positioned. Talked about as a feminist visionary, self described later on as a feminist visionary who came under accusations for mistreating the actors that he worked with. So I had done that a couple of years ago and had really spent a lot of time thinking about sort of what it means when these creators who speak to young women and present themselves as good guy feminists, we, the public, come to learn that there is another side to their Persona that they projected onto the world stage. So all that said, the Tortoise podcast, which features some of the same women I ended up speaking to about Neil came out last July. And the day that it came out, I was getting texts from, you know, friends and people I know, like, oh my God, are you gonna do this? So it was just a sort of like immediate, yeah, this is my story. I've read everything he's ever written. I loved him as a Teenager, probably my two favorite creators as a 16 year old were like, Joss Whedon and Neil Gaiman.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

What did you like about his. His work? I mean, what spoke to you about it?

[Natalie]

This is going to sound kind of messed up, but I think this is not uncommon for fans of his work. I was depressed and angsty teenager, and his work is very sadistic and very sexual in actually kind of similar ways to Buffy. There's this sort of sadomasochistic element that runs through all of it. But it always felt like it was written from the perspective of someone who understood those impulse and was a safe person to sort of read about them, think about them, dream about them with. And I think that as a teenager I was also aware of him, his. His Persona and presence.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

What is that Persona?

[Natalie]

It's funny because his work has this very dark edge to it, but his public Persona is very nice, it's welcoming, it's inviting. He corresponds with his fans directly. He's extremely accessible. If you want to seek him out, you can find him easily as well as, like, also, you know, he's hot. Or he was. I mean, the first thing I read of his was Sandman. And it's like Sandman is about a group of eternal beings who are siblings. And each member of this family is like an embodiment or personification of some fundamental aspect of the human experience. So, like, the main character is called Dream. He rules over the Dreaming, the place all of us visit in our sleep. It's this incredibly intimate relationship that Dream has between himself and every living human being. Like, he's inside everyone's head. And of course I noticed, as everyone noticed, if they look closely, that Dream and Neil look the same. Like they look, they are meant to look alike.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

They have this long dark hair and dark eyes and kind of like slightly pursed lips and sort of this kind of distinct nose. Like. And he's kind of this foppish English guy with this accent.

[Natalie]

Yes. Is that it? Exactly that. So those were the things that, as a teenager, it was like, oh, there's this guy. There's like this man who can see inside my head and into my dreams and is depicting all sorts of incredibly traumatic, disturbing things, but in this way that often doesn't feel too threatening.

[Lila Shapiro]

What are like, a couple of the different plot lines that really resonated with you of his?

[Natalie]

I mean, the first thing that just came to my head was in the first issue, actually. So the story begins with Dream has been captured by a group of human magicians who are trying to live forever and they're actually trying to capture death, who's dream's older sister. But they get dream instead. And so at the beginning of the story, he is caught in this magical sphere and all of his tools are taken away from him and kind of scattered to the winds. And random people get them. I remember reading as like, you know, 15 or 16. There's a character who gets a hold of this ruby which can make people do anything he wants them to do. And this character wanders into this diner with the ruby and begins to make the people in the diner do all sorts of different things he wants live out his fantasies, live out their fantasies. It's like this very disturbing, weird scene. And it goes really far. I mean, it ends with all of them dying. But it's in between that. It's like this whole journey. He wants to go to sort of this, like, darkest possible place in the human imagination.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

And is it sexual?

[Natalie]

Yeah, I mean, he's forcing all of the people to have sex with each other and then to torture and mutilate each other. So there's a whole arc that just continues to escalate and escalate and escalate. You know, he's. He's showing the way control of these characters can be pleasurable, horrible, devastating, destructive to the person who's doing them as well as to the people who receive it. I mean, it's this really like what felt at the time as this real look into the mind of the sadist and the power that this person can enact now. All of that said, I think today, when I reread most of his work while I was working on the piece, I was like. Didn't felt like it spoke to me at all. There's something about being an adolescent, I think, in particular, and encountering it that feels really.

[Lila Shapiro]

Because you're so lost, basically. Because you're so lost. And look, he's, I think, the, you know, one of the best writers, if not the best writer other than Stephen King at, like, fantasy and horror. Right. And that place of other people's minds just don't go there. I mean, it's interesting to contrast him with the romantasy trend. Romantasy is so popular. Popular now. People love these books, but they are romance books. They are books about love. And his books are really not to me, to me, I don't know. We can get into the scandal, I guess you could call it, that you investigated. But there's then also the fact of this almost in plain sight, right. The way that somebody writes this level of fantasy to think that that doesn't bleed at all into your personal life. Obviously, it's possible, totally possible. I don't want to say that it's not. Didn't Salinger, like, lived in a house in Vermont for like 30 years and didn't talk to even his neighbor? Right. But when I first read the story you wrote, I was like, well, this is not a surprise that he was having women call him master, that he was acting in ways that were abusive towards these women, and that there were dominant submission fantasies that may not have been consensual. I mean, we can get into all the stuff about the young women and the ways in which he was having people babysit his kid and also sleeping with them, which just as a mom, is so insane to me.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

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[Lila Shapiro]

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[Vanessa]

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[Lila Shapiro]

So walk us through the accusations against him that came up.

[Natalie]

So the first episode, the first Tortoise episode was about this young woman who is also the central figure of my piece, Scarlett Pavlovich. And she was from New Zealand, from Auckland. And she met Amanda and later Neil during the pandemic. And she sort of young person without any sort of resources, no money, no connection with her family. She'd been homeless for stretches of the pandemic and was really searching for something to give her life, like structure, meaning, and a kind of familial intimacy. And she met Amanda Palmer. She was a huge fan of Amanda's. She read her book. She listened to interviews with her. She was just following her really closely. And then they met, and she was just unbelievably shocked and blown away when Amanda wanted to be friends with her and wanted to hang out to introduce Amanda. I mean, one of the things Amanda is known for is being one of the most successful crowdfunded musicians of the last decade. And specifically, she's known for kind of gathering people around her who want to help her out so that they can be part of this community and world she cultivates around herself. Right.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

Her book was called the Art of Asking, and you described it as part memoir, part manifesto on the virtues of asking for assistance of various kinds.

[Lila Shapiro]

She's this very online character in a way. Right. You could have seen her as like almost a Katy Perry figure, where she was so in touch with her fans all the time online. Obviously not seeking that kind of pop stardom, although they did get, you know, pretty big in the alternative world. Although, I don't know, maybe she wouldn't mind having that pop stardom, as I'm saying that. But the idea being that she's got this idea of give and take, exchange value. Your fans are your friends. You're giving something, they're giving something back.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

That it's reciprocal in some ways.

[Lila Shapiro]

Reciprocal. And it's just interesting that she then links up with Neil, who obviously is also obsessed with this idea of relationship. How do you be in relationship? What is equal, what is not? For him, the fantasy is very much about not being equal.

[Natalie]

Right.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

There's, like, a sense of give and take in both of their works, but also, like, foggy boundaries. If I think about a lot of people in Hollywood, it seems very strange to think that. That a fan and a friend could be the same thing, because there is a very different power dynamic between a person who's a public figure and a fan. In my mind, it's not an equal footing that could lead to a balanced friendship. But that doesn't seem to be what. What she thought. And as your story discusses, like, they started to have this relationship that was blurred, like work and friendship, where Scarlet was kind of doing childcare and at times getting paid, at times not.

[Natalie]

Yeah. I mean, and she was doing other things as well, like organizing files and running errands, or she'd be invited to, like, a gathering of artists at Amanda's home, and she'd be kind of like, oh, can you help prep the stuff for the snacks? But, like, the other artists, Amanda's peers weren't being asked to babysit in the middle of the party.

[Lily Houston Smith]

Right.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

And you have to think that for this very young woman who's kind of, as you've described her, sort of like just figuring out where she's at in life, that would be really cool. Like, these are cool people to hang out with if you have any sort of creative aspirations. It's like, oh, my God, I'm hanging out with this awesome artist who I probably listened to growing up, and, like, this guy who's this fantastic writer, and it's this cool world of artists. I mean, I can imagine being so enamored with that.

[Natalie]

Definitely. She was. She was. And it was actually even more than that because she is also gay, and she had a crush on Amanda, so she really wanted to show up for her in any way she could. So there's, like, about a year and a half or so where she and Amanda are kind of bonding, seeing each other intermittently as Amanda is around and she's babysitting and she's doing other stuff. During most of that time, Neil was away because they had at the very beginning of the pandemic, before Scarlet and Amanda met. Neil and Amanda had split up, and he'd left the country, and he'd actually broken lockdown, left the country, generated a bunch of news headlines about how the villagers in the Isle of Skye were furious that he'd flown to his house there at the height of COVID breaking all the protocols. But anyway, so she hadn't met Neil, but then he comes back to the Country. And, and not long after, Amanda invited Scarlet to babysit for the weekend. They both had houses on Waikiki, which is like the island off of Auckland where all of the billionaires around the world were spending their pandemic lockdowns. So she was going to go back and forth between Neil and Amanda's houses with their child. And unlike Amanda, she actually wasn't familiar with Neil's work. I mean, she knew who he was, but she wasn't like a fan of his. But when she arrived at the house in this remote island in the middle of nowhere, she meets him and the child is not there. Even though she was arrived to babysit, the child is almost immediately upon her arrival sent off for a play date elsewhere. So it's the two of them in the house and they spend a little bit of time together and they have dinner in the garden. And after dinner he invites her to take a bath in his outdoor bathtub. It's so beautiful. It's in the garden, underneath the flowering tree, whatever, like absolutely. Go and relax. And she's like, no, I'm all good, I don't need to take a bath. But he kind of urges her and she is, you know, and I can also say this, having spent time with her, she is one of the most, like, eager to please people I've ever met in my life. So she does, she decides, she's like, okay, well, sure, if you really want me to take a bath, I'll take a bath. He fills up the bath, she gets into the bath, he's gone, he's left. And as she's settled into the bath, he returns and now he's naked and there's been no discussion of anything. And it's not like he'd been seducing her all night. It was a very sort of awkward dinner. There was no element of it that was flirtatious. And Also, she is 22 year old lesbian who's never been with a man. She was a virgin, except for one experience she had when she was 15 when she'd been sexually assaulted by an older family friend. So he shows up naked and he wants to get into the bath with her. And as she's described this, like, not just to me and to the journalists at Tortoise, but also in contemporaneous notes, entries on her phone and also in texting people she knew at the time, like something's happened, a boundary was crossed. And so he gets into the bath with her and she's very tense, she's sort of curled up into A ball kind of like shielding her breasts with her arms. And he tells her to relax and he tells her to put her feet in the water and to put her hands down and she says she doesn't want to. And he tells her to do it again. He tells her not to ruin the moment. And it kind of unravels from there where he has this, as one of the other women I ended up speaking to put it to me, like he has this script that he goes into and as these women have described it to me, he's not interested in whether they want to participate in the script or not. So on that first night in the bathtub, basically he tells her to call him master and he'll come. And then he does. And then he says to her that Amanda had told him he couldn't have her. And when Amanda said that to him, he knew he had to have her. And then he said, I miss the old days when we could have both had you, you know, which is quite obviously ominous. I should say here that Neil has denied the allegations of sexual assault, coercion and abuse that Scarlet and others have made. Although he declined to speak with me while I was working on the story. The day after my article came out he released his own statement saying he wasn't perfect and denying that he had engaged in non consensual sexual activity with anyone ever.

[Scarlett Pavlovich]

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[Lily Houston Smith]

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[Lila Shapiro]

Where is Amanda in all of this? Because she's supposed to be this big feminist, right? She's sort of aware or wants day she becomes aware.

[Natalie]

When Scarlet eventually told her about what had been happening after Neil left the country, Amanda's response to her was, you're the 14th woman who said this to me later. It's been conveyed to me that this was like a figure of speech and she didn't actually know what she was saying and that she just said something, but she wanted to make Scarlet feel better and feel less alone. That's the thing. Message that's been conveyed to me about the meaning of that statement.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

And we should say, by the way, that this is all allegedly, like, according to Scarlet. Right? I mean, has. How has Amanda publicly responded to this?

[Natalie]

She has not said.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

She has not publicly responded.

[Natalie]

Okay, yeah, yeah. In part because Amanda and Neil are still in the midst of a very nasty custody battle and divorce that's been going for like, five years now, and it's still unresolved. So I think, you know, her position is that she cannot speak now because of that legal situation.

[Lila Shapiro]

But what about the idea that Amanda might be stirring the pot because of the divorce here, that she might be trying to create the situation by which she gets the best settlement, custody, et cetera?

[Natalie]

It's hard to know. I mean, on the other hand, you could say this has been pretty devastating to her public reputation as well. She's not gaining fans and followers from being implicated in this way. I think it's quite damaging to have her not be out there supporting these women who are making accusations about her ex. Which, for instance, when Scarlet went to the police in New Zealand to eventually tell them about what had happened, the police told her that Amanda's participation backing her up would be critical to the case moving forward. And Scarlet's response at the time was, I'm sure she'll want to support me because she's this public feminist and she'll want to be out there on the record backing me. But then what happened next was that the police reached out to her, and she wouldn't speak to them. She didn't speak to them. She makes her money off of being seen as a feminist icon. And, you know, now whenever she posts stuff on Instagram or Facebook or wherever about new shows, the comments will be filled with people being like, we know what you did. Why will you not speak about the women? So it. It's not like she's coming off clean.

[Lila Shapiro]

Yeah, no, it would be crazy. I mean, look, conspiracies do happen, but she would not have been thinking clearly if she was trying to create this public hubbub. But what. What about Neil's upbringing as a Scientologist? And how much do you think that whole upbringing affected him?

[Natalie]

I think it can't be stressed enough how much it must have shaped him, because the way he's represented his upbringing in Scientology, generally he avoids the subject or tries to underplay it. I mean, he mentions that his parents had taken Dianetics classes and that his sister worked for the church. But it's like, that's such a underplaying of what the real story was, which is that his parents were two of the most prominent Scientologists in the uk, and his. His father was the public spokesperson for the church who was really responsible for trying to spin stories of the Church torturing people and say, actually, no, that's not what the shortage. None of those stories are true. And really, all we do is help people. And Neil was a prop in that campaign. Neil did interviews beginning at, like, 7 years old about how wonderful Scientology had been for him. He was one of the youngest auditors. So he'd been trained in auditing, which is the Church's sort of counseling procedures that they do, but which is often likened by critics as a form of hypnosis. And it really is about learning how to exert control over people that you are auditing. So he was trained from five years old in those techniques. And then there's the fact that this was one of the most volatile and violent periods in the Church's history. That was what his childhood was. And then his father is the one who's responsible for lying to the public about it and making it something other than what it is. So I think it's like, if you put those two things together and then you look at these accusations, it's very hard not to see some relationship between them.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

And we should also say that Scarlet's accusations aren't the only ones. I mean, can you give us a little rundown of some of the other allegations against him?

[Natalie]

Yeah. While I was reporting on the piece, I was in touch with nine women. And many of these stories share many common elements. And the women had not talked to each other. He has a very specific sexual signature, I guess you could call it. He wants these women to call him master. He expects them to be completely submissive to him. And also I think something that's pretty noteworthy about the women that I was talking to during the time I was reporting to the piece. It's not like he's going on like websites trawling for women who are into submission. These women are, as they've described it to me, actually specifically not interested in it. You know, in three different women's stories, there were instances of them saying no and of him moving forward anyway, you know, allegedly. So those were some of the elements they shared in common as well as quite a few of them were fans. And then several of the others worked for him. And it happened over decades.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

One of the people who spoke on the record for your piece is actually basically being sued by Neil right now. That's Caroline Walner. And she basically accused him of sexual misconduct. And he's now seeking $500,000 in damages from her, alleging that she breached an NDA that she'd signed with him by speaking publicly. What have been the legal ramifications of this and also the career ramifications for Neil? Because there have been some pretty sizable ones, I would say.

[Natalie]

Yeah, I mean, I think he's had a number of projects cancelled or otherwise derailed. There were quite a few things that were in production when this happened that I think are paused or over now. Good omens on Amazon. They were gonna have a third season and then it was gonna be a finale episode, like a movie length finale episode. But now it's kind of unclear when that's coming out. The new season of Sandman just came out and, you know, which was already finished at the time the accusations dropped. And I've seen very little conversation about it online. Obviously it's tough to promote something of his right now. He's also being sued by Scarlet, he and Amanda. She's suing both of them. It's too soon to know how that case is gonna play out because there are some pretty complicated jurisdictional issues at play. What happened to her happened in New Zealand, but they're trying to use this United States law. Neil's team is trying to get them to dismiss it just on the jurisdictional grounds. So the judge hasn't yet weighed in on that question. But if it goes forward, there's Going to be a trial. It's scheduled for next summer.

[Lila Shapiro]

If that doesn't go forward, really, it does look to me like this is really reputational damage for him, right?

[Natalie]

Yeah. But, you know, I think the reputation for him is really significant because, you know, there are obviously some people, and we're seeing it now, who can come back like Louis CK it's different level of allegations, but he's still got fans.

[Jonathan Van Ness]

Absolutely.

[Natalie]

The problem for Neil is that his fandom was so shaped by this vision of him as this good guy and champion of women. And I think this is something similar that you see with Joss and Buffy. It's very hard for Joss Whedon to keep going when there's, like, this way that you become part of this fan community and it means something about your own identity. And, you know, with Neil, I think it's like it meant something specific. It meant something really specific for women. And it had to do with this vision of him as this inclusive, courageous, benefactor kind of figure. And once that goes away, it's like people don't feel good being part of the fandom anymore. And it's a really big problem because it's not like with Louis CK where he can just like, oh, I can still fill Madison Square Garden with all the people who don't give a shit about these stories about me. People in Neil's fandom do care about that. That's part of why they were in the fandom.

[Lila Shapiro]

So what can we. I mean, I hate to say this, but what can we take away from this incredibly dark story? What is the lesson? That's not just. There are art monsters out there. Art monster being, I guess, a person who lives for their art, who's narcissistically involved in it, who. Other people are sort of just props for the vision of their lives that they have and creation. When you think about this, what are the silver linings or what are the things that you take away that are hopeful?

[Natalie]

I'm not sure about hopeful per se, but I do think that it's a huge error for fans to worship creators and that this is an important lesson as to why we shouldn't trust famous figures who describe themselves as good. It's sort of like, heads up, don't fall in love with the author of the work you love. But it's a big problem, because if you think about the whole genre world right now and these, the way this sort of world of conventions and fandom has grown up over the past couple of decades, like, it's really all about fostering the parasocial relationship and that I think is a big societal problem because yeah, I don't think it's good for us or for them to have these very worshipful fans pleading with the famous person to bestow on them just like a little glimmer of their attention as.

[Lila Shapiro]

Creators of All Stripes became but particularly as you say in genre areas became more accessible. Yeah, that relationship just developed and developed. Well. Thank you so much Lila. We appreciate you coming on to talk about this story which went viral and was an amazing read. You're a wonderful writer. Everybody should check it out. We'll have a link in the show notes as well.

[Natalie]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Lily Houston Smith]

Thanks so much everyone for listening to Infamous this week.

[Natalie]

Mom and dad, the school supplies you.

[Scarlett Pavlovich]

Buy me this year will mostly end.

[Natalie]

Up in my mouth. Maybe shop low prices for school at Amazon so I don't eat up all your money, just something to chew on Amazon spend less, smile more.