← Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman
Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman
The bath | Ep 1
00:56:17
Neil Gaiman is one of the world’s most successful authors. Now two women, a former nanny and a fan, allege he sexually assaulted and abused them while they were in consensual relationships with him. He strenuously denies all the allegations.
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- [00:05]
Rachel Johnson
Tortoise.
- [00:11]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Hi, I'm Paul Caruana Galizia from Tortoise. Before we begin, I just need to warn you this is a hard listen at times. This episode and the whole series contains graphic descriptions of sexual and of allegations of sexual abuse. The four episodes are designed to be listened to in their entirety, because this is a story of conflicting accounts. Eight months ago, a young woman got in touch with the broadcaster Rachel Johnson.
- [00:48]
Rachel Johnson
It all starts with a message on Instagram. Welcome to my podcast, Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women. I present a show on LBC and a podcast called Difficult Women, and I get a ton of messages. This one seems no different. It's from a young New Zealander called Scarlet. We're using her first name only to protect her identity. She wishes me a lovely day and says she's got a question. It's friendly, breezy even. No hint there of the bombshell email that arrives a week later.
- [01:27]
Paul Caruana Galizia
The email includes allegations of serious sexual assaults carried out by a famous man, a man who was 61 when Scarlett was 22 and worked as his child's nanny. In that first email, Scarlett doesn't name the author who she alleges sexually assaulted her within hours of their first meeting and, she says, continued to assault me. Over the coming month.
- [01:58]
Rachel Johnson
I arranged to talk to Scarlet and what emerges is a more complex picture. Her allegations are of abuse within a consensual sexual relationship. She tells me she did not consent to everything this author did, nor every time he did it. But in her texts and video messages to him during their brief relationship and afterwards, she declared not just her consent, but her gratitude, appreciation, affection and even love. In other words, Scarlett's email opens a chapter of investigation into the greyest of grey areas when it comes to our sex lives. The area where the scope for genuine misinterpretation, but also for the possibility of serious abuse, where it can take time even for someone to make sense of what happened. While the police, if they're called upon, often look in vain for quick and clear evidence from the start, in large part because that's what they think a jury needs for a verdict. Any one of us can be on a jury. So it's also about our understanding of consent within a sexual relationship. People still expect sexual assault to happen between strangers, when in fact, the vast majority of assault victims are or were in relationships with their assailants. It's still often assumed that by being in a relationship, you provide ongoing consent for sex. It's an assumption that used to be codified until 1992. UK law said there could be no rape between husband and wife, as by the contract of marriage, a wife submitted herself irrevocably to sex at all times. Other jurisdictions have also removed the marital rape exemption. But across countries, people still cling to the assumption that that simply being in a relationship provides ongoing sexual consent. The law says that consent is for each and every act, whether you're in a relationship or not. But when prosecutors bring cases of sexual assault to court, they come up against that assumption in its different forms, to people, to jurors. The behaviour of sexual assault victims conflicts with the behaviour they expect from a real victim. For them to scream, to forcefully resist, to immediately make a police report to avoid their assailant. But in fact, in most cases, there's no screaming or physical resistance. Police reports are delayed or never happen. And victims continue to have contact with their assailants. Often they continue to have sex with them. It's why Scarlett's allegations are so difficult to tell and so complicated. And why, I'd say, so important. She and the man in question look back on it in ways that sometimes overlap. They agree about details, dates, places and times of what happened between them, but not always. And when it comes to the really important questions, what was the sex really like? Was it okay? Were they both clear at the time that it was okay? They couldn't be further apart. She says it was abuse from the very beginning. In his account, the sex was loving and consensual and didn't involve full intercourse. Faced with two diametrically opposed accounts, it's inevitable that this can't be just Scarlett's story. It has to include as much as possible of the man's version of events as well. Not just out of fairness, important though that is, but so that Paul and I and you have a chance of making sense of the relationship. Scarlett had a relationship, in this case with the author Neil Gaiman. A man who's never faced allegations of sexual misconduct before. A man who's on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
- [06:36]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Neil Gaiman is credited with bringing comic books to a global audience. His novels sell tens of millions of copies worldwide.
- [06:46]
Scarlett
Your waking world is shaped by dreams.
- [06:53]
Paul Caruana Galizia
His writing has been adapted for TV miniseries on Netflix and Amazon. It isn't pretend. It is real.
- [07:01]
Rachel Johnson
All of it was dreamed into existence.
- [07:05]
Paul Caruana Galizia
There's been a West End the Show and several Hollywood films. He's won most international awards, going in fantasy, horror, comic books, sci fi and children's literature. I've heisted My way to the bestseller list once again. He's even appeared in the Simpsons twice.
- [07:25]
Amanda Palmer
And the most brilliant part is I.
- [07:28]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Don'T even know how to read. He's known for his friendly interactions with his legions of fans, and his public Persona is low key, understated, but he's a creative colossus nonetheless.
- [07:43]
Scarlett
You know, he sort of lured me, if you will, into his psychological labyrinth. So it was not straightforward at all.
- [07:52]
Rachel Johnson
When Scarlett says in her first Instagram message that she has a question for me, what she really means is she wants my help.
- [08:00]
Scarlett
I guess that he's held to account. That's literally all I want.
- [08:05]
Rachel Johnson
Journalists don't have the same powers as the state to investigate criminal allegations, nor should we assume that role. Scarlett is exceptional in that she even went to the police in the first place. But she's unexceptional in the fact that the system seems to have failed her. So now she's turning to the press. But how could I help? Should I? Even given the seriousness of the allegations, I needed someone with experience on these kinds of stories.
- [08:40]
Paul Caruana Galizia
But this story was different. There are usually rumors swirling around this time. There were none, certainly none that had reached the media. There's one lone negative news story about Neil Gaiman that he once broke pandemic lockdown rules. And what's more, Neil Gaiman has long been outspoken in his support of women and against sexual abuse, support that he believes to be sincere and unwavering. We understand he sees himself as highly attuned to issues of consent, and his position is that he strongly denies any allegation of sexual misconduct. Some women who I spoke to have nothing but positive things to say about him. They say they love and respect him, that they care about him and that he's helped them. Yet what this young woman told Rachel and me painted a much more disturbing picture of Neil Gaiman. She alleges that he groomed her and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. His position is that her allegations are fantastical and false.
- [10:02]
Scarlett
It was so confusing because I feel like at the end of it, he made me feel like it was consensual, but it wasn't consensual.
- [10:15]
Paul Caruana Galizia
As we set out to examine her allegations, working over many months, we tried to get every side of the story and gather as much material as possible. We questioned what we were hearing the whole way through. We wondered whether it would be possible to really know what happened between two people when often no one was around. When one person says one thing and the other has a very different account, at the same time, we felt we couldn't ignore what this young woman told us. And when Rachel and I learnt of another woman with sexual allegations like these against Neil Gaiman, a woman separated by decades and continents from the first, we felt we had to pay attention. Because here again, the woman was much younger than him. She first met him as a teenage fan and began a sexual relationship with him when she was 20 and he was in his 40s and already famous. It was a relationship in which she now alleges he performed non consensual sex on her. And here again they exchanged loving and flirtatious emails, both during and long after their relationship had ended.
- [11:36]
Amanda Palmer
I never wanted any of the stuff he did to me, including the more violent stuff. But I did consent to it, you know.
- [11:46]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Because even if consent for sex was given or assumed to be there, there are still questions to answer about how a powerful person treats a vulnerable one. Do they really believe that the other would say yes to sexual if they didn't have power over them? Don't they have a heightened duty of care, a greater burden to seek consent? And for the other person, where do you go when no one will listen? When the law, the police, the courts will tell you that you can't be both a lover and a victim, or first one, then the other? What you'll hear in this four part series is disturbing in its allegations of certain sexual acts. We've thought long and hard about this point of view before publishing. Neil Gaiman's position is that sexual degradation, bondage, domination, sadism and masochism may not be to everyone's taste, but between consenting adults, BDSM is lawful only. That's not quite what the law says. It's more nuanced than that. This story plays out in three countries, and in each one there are legal protections in place to stop people feeling pressured into consenting to sex that harms them. In the uk, sex that causes actual bodily harm, that is minor injuries, pain or discomfort, is unlawful even if consent is given. American criminal law generally doesn't allow consent to serious harm in sex, and in New Zealand, the court considers the circumstances and rationality of consent in each case. The idea, of course, isn't to police what people do in their bedrooms, and it's not to embarrass or shame them either. It's to prevent abuse. It's to stop consent being used as a defense when harmful sex becomes a matter of dispute. But the law or its enforcement isn't keeping up everywhere. Some people say that women are increasingly being seriously injured in what Men claim to be consensual sexual acts.
- [14:16]
Rachel Johnson
What you will hear is disturbingly common. One in three women faces sexual assault. It is the most prolific human rights abuse in the world. And if we can't talk about it and report on it, then how are we ever going to grapple with it or resolve it? I'm Rachel Johnson.
- [14:35]
Paul Caruana Galizia
And I'm Paul Karuana Galizia. You're listening to the slow newscast from Tortoise. This is Master episode one, the Bath.
- [15:00]
Rachel Johnson
Just give me a timeline. Can we start with a timeline of what happened?
- [15:04]
Scarlett
Yeah, yeah.
- [15:06]
Rachel Johnson
When we first talk, it's on a video call. I'm in London. Scarlett's in Auckland, in New Zealand. She's 23 years old, but seems younger, elfin, with wide awake eyes, her hair scraped back into a bun.
- [15:21]
Scarlett
So I knew Amanda as a friend and she messaged me one weekend last minute.
- [15:28]
Rachel Johnson
She starts her story one Friday on the 4th of February, 2022. When she gets a call that weekend.
- [15:35]
Scarlett
She desperately needed help because she was recording music or something and I was like, yeah, sure, just stopped working weekends. I've been working in like a perfumery.
- [15:46]
Rachel Johnson
Her friends Amanda Palmer, the globally successful singer, songwriter and lead singer of the Dresden Dolls. Scarlett's been a fan of Amanda's for years, but they've been friends since 2021. After they met by chance on the street in Auckland. Amanda offers Scarlett tickets to gigs and asks her to run errands for her. Scarlett's recently given up a job working in a perfume shop and she likes being part of Amanda's world. She's also drawn to the idea of being part of Amanda Palmer's household. But Scarlett's never met Amanda's husband, Neil Gaiman. The couple are living in separate houses on Waiheke, an exclusive island that's a short ferry hop from Auckland. On this Friday the 4th of February, Amanda wants Scarlett to look after their 6 year old for the day on the mainland. It's a casual arrangement. There's no contract, just an offer of 25 New Zealand dollars an hour. That's about 12 pounds. It goes well in Auckland that morning. So Amanda suggests that Scarlett travels to the island Waiheke to babysit that afternoon and evening as well, and ended up.
- [17:00]
Scarlett
Going there that weekend. And she said, can you just work for me full time?
- [17:04]
Rachel Johnson
The role being offered to Scarlett is more like that of an au pair than a formal nanny. Scarlett will live with the family and help both parents with childcare and, as it turns out, cooking and cleaning too.
- [17:17]
Paul Caruana Galizia
We've got the WhatsApp exchanges from that afternoon of the 4th of February. From them we can work out that the first time Scarlett meets Neil Gaiman is just before 2pm at the ferry terminal. Neil Gaiman and the child go on ahead to Waihiki. Scarlett grabs an overnight bag and follows them on a later ferry from the Whatsapps we can see Neil Gaiman then arrange to meet Scarlett at his house at five minutes past two. He writes it's a 12 minute bus ride and a five minute walk over a secret wetland path. Later he asks, have you got off the bus yet? Scarlett replies, yep, just walking along the Wetlands. Beautiful. At 4.26pm, Neil Gaiman then, Brilliant. See you in five minutes. So we know that Scarlett arrives at the house at around 4.30pm when she.
- [18:20]
Rachel Johnson
Gets there, there's little babysitting to be done as the child is dropped off at a pre arranged playdate at one of Amanda's friends nearby. The child's pickup time is left vague and Scarlett finds herself on her own with Neil Gaiman and conf.
- [18:46]
Scarlett
We were alone in his house together. It was awkward, to be honest. He was like on work calls and stuff and I was like, what the hell am I doing here? This is, I mean I was like kind of stoked to be getting paid. Just read basically.
- [19:01]
Rachel Johnson
After he's finished his work calls, Neil Gaiman suggests they get a pizza and Scarlett goes to pick it up.
- [19:09]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Scarlett Whatsapps Neil Gaiman. As she's waiting for the pizza, we know from her message that it's now.
- [19:17]
Rachel Johnson
7:39Pm Three hours have passed since Scarlett arrived at Neil Gaiman's house.
- [19:23]
Scarlett
And then he came and ate outside with me and I was like, it was quite baffling, kind of peculiar, but also flattering because. Because he's famous.
- [19:35]
Rachel Johnson
He certainly is. He's sold tens of millions of books. He's had a hit show in the West End based on his book the Ocean at the End of the Lane and his Sandman comic series is now a Netflix smash. Also, he's recognizable, only wears black. Black jeans, black leather jacket, black woolly hair, handsome in a crumpled way. You'd likely recognize him.
- [20:03]
Scarlett
We still had like time to kill apparently. So he said, do you want to take a bath? And I was like, oh yeah, sure. He said, okay, cool, I'll bring you a bath. And I thought, nothing on Rachel. I know it sounds crazy, but I truly thought nothing of it. So he runs me a bath. The bath is outside down at the bottom of the garden under what we call a PAHUTAKAWA tree, which is a big tree with red flowers. And he gives me a towel and says, just, you know, feel free, you know, come out, you know, when you're ready. So I got in and I, you know, was just sort of on my phone.
- [20:45]
Rachel Johnson
So Scarlett says Neil Gaiman leaves her to get into the bath alone and tells her to, to get out whenever she's done. She says he then goes into the house and when he comes out again she says he's naked.
- [20:59]
Scarlett
And then I hear, I don't know, like maybe five minutes later, clunk, clunk, clunk, down to the bath, you know, the Stones. And I was like, what the fuck? But also was like maybe thinking it was normal.
- [21:15]
Rachel Johnson
It's now about 9:25pm, the sun has set. About an hour earlier, Neil Gaiman brings candles with him and puts them around the bath.
- [21:26]
Scarlett
And then he got in the bath with me in the most un, fucking unfazed way, like completely nonchalant, like no issues, just like in the least sexual way possible, basically that I was just shookest. But like also, is this normal? And I sit down one end immediately went like, you know, this with my, with my legs.
- [21:59]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlett pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. She says she doesn't ask Neil Gaiman anything because she's shocked and bewildered and that his nonchalance makes her question her own discomfort. Maybe this is normal.
- [22:15]
Scarlett
I've seen Amanda naked many times because that's just how she lives her life basically. And she would walk around the house naked and, and she would go swimming naked and has a very sort of, yeah, liberal attitude towards nudity.
- [22:31]
Rachel Johnson
In Neil Gaiman's account, he had invited her to take a bath with him.
- [22:37]
Paul Caruana Galizia
At 9:31pm, Scarlett sends a text to her friend in Auckland. I am naked in the bath with Neil. I don't know how this happened. Don't reply, but fuck. And her friend doesn't reply. Not until the next day anyway. Remember he's 61, she's his son's nanny. She says she's not sexually attracted to, to him.
- [23:07]
Scarlett
I've just always known I love women and, and have been sexually attracted to women and sort of made myself this unabashed, vocal lesbian around town. But actually I have never, never had any sex.
- [23:24]
Paul Caruana Galizia
But yeah, not with a woman. But she told us that she did have a negative sexual experience with a middle aged man once before when she was a teenager. It's only been five hours since Scarlett first met Neil Gaiman at the house on Waikiki. Island. And now they're sitting at opposite ends of the same bathtub facing each other. The bath is a claw footed roll top old fashioned tub. It's filled with hot water via a hose from the house to its position under an ancient spreading Pohutakawa tree. We've got a photo of the bath. It's idyllic. In his account, Neil Gaiman asks Scarlett to participate in intimate contact and according to his account, she agrees in a way that is pleasant and unforced. In Neil Gaiman's account it is no more than cuddling and making out. I should warn you that what follows is, according to Scarlett, quite graphic.
- [24:46]
Scarlett
He ended up sort of asking me to put my legs, my legs down and I ignored him. And then he said, come on like get comfortable and you know, again I was like, you know, I'm good, I'm a bit shy. And then he asked me again and sort of, you know, gestured and so I put them down and he started, he started sort of caressing my legs.
- [25:12]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Scarlett then says that new Gaiman tells her to come over to his side of the bath so that she can see more of the Phutakaua tree. Silent and scared, she says she does this. She says she resists more of his touching by pulling forward and sitting up. She puts her phone down on the pebbles by the bath.
- [25:37]
Scarlett
It's quite, I don't know, it's sort of hard to talk well on zoom. Yeah. Made me, next thing I knew his fingers were in my ass and, and I wasn't really sure what was happening and, and then he made me give him a, or a hand job and I said no first because I'm not interested in that anatomy. And then he said, you don't know what you're missing out on, you know, come on, come over here. And then kept pushing it and kept pushing it to the point where I was just like fine and then he, he, he just jerked off over me.
- [26:32]
Rachel Johnson
Did you jump out of the bath at any point where you utterly.
- [26:37]
Scarlett
In a state of complete bewilderment. I wasn't really sure what was happening and you know, feeling really confused and he, and he started to say really kind of quite filthy things and you know, sort of ordering me to call her master.
- [27:03]
Paul Caruana Galizia
We understand that Neil Gaiman accepts that what he describes as digital penetration did happen between him and Scarlett, though without specifying when or how. And that Neil Gaiman's belief is that he established consent for this episode which did not go beyond cuddling and making out in the bath.
- [27:25]
Rachel Johnson
By now it's late in the evening and and the child needs collecting from what's become an extended playdate with a group of other children at Amanda's friend nearby. They both go, which was fucking awkward.
- [27:39]
Scarlett
Because Neil and I both had wet hair like at 11 o'clock at night, you know.
- [27:44]
Rachel Johnson
Alarm bells Remember Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are co parenting but they live apart. So after collecting the child, Scarlett asks Neil Gaiman to take her to Amanda Palmer's house. Scarlett says she felt unsafe returning to his.
- [28:04]
Paul Caruana Galizia
At 11:23, Scarlett makes a note on her phone. She records some of the things she's just described and what Neil Gaiman apparently says to her. I'm your master. Call me master and I'll come in the morning. At 7:35am Scarlett texts her friend in Auckland again. Hey, sorry for that message. I was pretty shocked when it was happening and I'm still in a state of shock. Haven't slept at all. Her friend finally replies and tells Scarlett to look after herself and asks if she needs to talk. Scarlett replies I'm pretty calm but confused to be honest. And in the same to be honest it all sounds very dramatic and strange, but I'm calm and everything is okay and I am really sorry for texting you a cry for help. I don't know but I know it crossed the boundaries. Everything just happened so quickly.
- [29:21]
Scarlett
I was up the whole night feverish and so confused and was and sort of could conceptually understand what had happened and was googling things like Neil Gaiman. Me too, like sexual assault, Neil Gaiman, like trying to find any, anything in the, you know, sort of underbelly of the web and couldn't find anything.
- [29:58]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlett says she uses private browsing to Google things she finds embarrassing, weird or sexual. As it's private browsing. There's no record of these searches, but there's copious other contemporaneous material.
- [30:15]
Paul Caruana Galizia
So it's really useful for our reporting that Scarlett's recorded all her notes and texts and the timings and there's been.
- [30:23]
Rachel Johnson
So much of it too. But it's really, really tough to read at times, isn't it?
- [30:27]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Yes. So that same morning on the Saturday 5 February, she texts a friend just before 8am to say Neil and I had sex in the bath last night. She then sends another message 40 minutes later saying but I know it crossed boundaries.
- [30:52]
Rachel Johnson
The sex Scarlett mentions in her text is shorthand for what she says happened in the bath the previous night. Later on the Saturday, Scarlett says she searches online on private browsing. Neil Gaiman sexual assault and Neil Gaiman me too. She texts one friend about the boundaries being crossed and another about being shocked. So Scarlett knows something's not right at this stage. But as she tries to make sense of everything, to normalize it, she also sends messages to Neil Gaiman that appear to contradict the feelings she's disclosing to her friends.
- [31:33]
Paul Caruana Galizia
So at 8:48am on the Saturday, just minutes after texting the friend about the crossed boundaries, she whatsapps Neil Gaiman to plan out the day ahead, looking after the child. And here's where things start to get messy emotionally and evidentially, she signs off with thank you for a lovely, lovely night. Wow Kiss.
- [32:13]
Scarlett
It was so confusing because I feel like at the end of it he made me feel like it was consensual, but it wasn't consensual and the anal was the basically the last thing on the fucking planet I think is like, I want to do that.
- [32:38]
Rachel Johnson
Same Saturday evening, after she's put the child to bed, Neil Gaiman anally penetrates her, she says, without asking and without using a condom. And she says that he uses butter as a lubricant.
- [32:52]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Scarlett messages another friend on the Monday to her friend Ms. Ma, she hello darling, I've had a crazy weekend. To getting bitten by a spider, to ridiculously crazy and rough and kind of amazing sex.
- [33:10]
Rachel Johnson
Missma remembers receiving this text.
- [33:13]
Amanda Palmer
She framed it as both like a positive and a negative thing in the same sentence. Like that she just had like good but quite rough or good bit of like violent or something sex with a man and like not to tell anyone.
- [33:30]
Rachel Johnson
We understand that Neil Gaiman was by this point already aware of Scarlett's only previous sexual experience, which was negative and with a man. His position is that he was considerate of Scarlett because of this, that full penetrative sex would have been akin to taking her virginity. And so in his account he only used his fingers. We're told that Neil Gaiman's position is that within two days of meeting her, he discovered Scarlett was interested in mild bdsm which they then engaged in during their three week sexual relationship.
- [34:09]
Scarlett
That was the start of a month basically of being choked and utterly humiliated.
- [34:29]
Rachel Johnson
Two weeks later, on February 19, they're in a hotel on the mainland, the Sky City, Grand Auckland, room 1619, a small double room with an ensuite bathroom. It's understood that in Neil Gaiman's account of this evening, she only went to his room to make a drop off. Again, in Scarlet's telling, what follows is graphic.
- [34:53]
Scarlett
Neil Pulled my pants down and started, oh, my God, it's so weird just saying it.
- [34:59]
Paul Caruana Galizia
So.
- [35:02]
Scarlett
It never. It never gets. It never gets organic saying this stuff because it's so outlandish and. And. And sort of, yeah, pulled my. Pulled my pants down and started penetrating me and he put his hand around my mouth. Was not given any consent or space for agency.
- [35:28]
Rachel Johnson
Neil Gaiman's account of this scene is that Scarlett was not meant to stay in his hotel room for long, but that at a certain point, they found themselves cuddling together fully clothed under the bed sheets. Afterwards, Neil Gaiman sends Scarlett for takeout. He has a detailed order. Street dog, no mustard or mayo, only tomato sauce. Montreal poutine, large root beer float. It's worth pointing out that at this stage, Scarlett has nowhere else to go. She's estranged from her parents, she's no money, apart from what Neil Gaiman gives her. She's dependent on him for bed, board and income. And in return, he uses her as, in her words, his fuck pig, and makes her call him master. In that text to her friend Misma, Scarlett describes the sex as rough. So I asked her if she had any photos of any injuries. She sent one back, a selfie of herself lying in the outside bath at Neil Gaiman's house. It's not taken on that first night, but on a different occasion. She has a purple bruise on her right breast.
- [36:48]
Scarlett
There were times where, particularly one time, it was so painful and so violent that I fainted. I passed out, lost consciousness, ringing in the ears, black vision was. The pain was like celestial, you know, which is a strange word to use, but I couldn't even describe it in language. And when I regained consciousness and I was on the ground, I looked up and he was watching the rehearsals from Scotland of whatever they were filming, I don't know, and didn't even notice that I was passed out and, you know, that there was blood. It was so, so, so traumatic. And I asked him to stop. I said it was too much. And he. And he laughed at me, said, I need to be punished. You know, used his belt on me.
- [37:57]
Rachel Johnson
One of the questions I keep coming back to is, why? Why would anyone stay around for this?
- [38:04]
Scarlett
They made me feel part of their family and they made me feel completely deeply connected to them.
- [38:12]
Rachel Johnson
And this was her vulnerability. Scarlett was initially drawn into the Gaiman Palmer celebrity ecosystem by her fascination with Amanda, a feminist rock star. And she stayed in their world because it appeared to be offering her something she didn't have and never really had. A sense that she belonged and to a creative, eccentric and successful family. We don't know what Amanda Palmer made of this. Over the course of two months, we repeatedly emailed her and whatsapped her. She never replied or even acknowledged our messages. We emailed two of her friends in New Zealand asking whether they'd speak to us. One declined, the other didn't answer. And we tried without success. A number of people who worked with her.
- [39:07]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Three days into her job as a nanny to Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's child, or in other words, three days after Neil Gaiman allegedly assaulted her for the first time, Scarlett Whatsapps Amanda, she said, love hanging out with you lot. My heart is so full and it's nice to have friends again. Honestly, I can't even tell you. I cried on the ferry because I realized how lonely I've been for the last six months.
- [39:43]
Scarlett
He'd say things to me, Rachel, that made me feel reliant on him. He'd say, I'm going to help you and I'm going to take you to London if you ever need anything, anywhere, you know, all that stuff. And when you're a young person, you, you, you know, it's nice to hear that stuff. It's like, oh, cool. Like, if I go to London, I'll have somewhere to stay, you know, I'm thinking quite practically.
- [40:07]
Rachel Johnson
How old was he at this point?
- [40:09]
Scarlett
61.
- [40:11]
Rachel Johnson
And you didn't find him attractive? You never in love?
- [40:14]
Scarlett
Of course not, no. I never found anything erotic ever about it at all. About any of it was so abhorrent and degrading. It seems actually outrageous to say some of this stuff, like, I do find it abstractly funny, but it wasn't funny, you know, and it wasn't funny that when he, when he left, because he upped and left, it wasn't fucking funny when three weeks later, I ended up in hospital, suicidal.
- [40:52]
Paul Caruana Galizia
The way Scarlett came to see her time with Neil Gaiman appears very different to how she described it at the time. Remember, she told one friend at the time that the sex was ridiculously crazy and rough and kind of amazing. Scarlett says this reassessment began when she was hospitalized and talked to a nurse about what had brought her to the point of suicide. On 25 February, Neil Gaiman leaves Waikiki and New Zealand and flies to the uk.
- [41:28]
Scarlett
The thing that he said the morning that he left was, which I didn't understand at the time, but I completely understand now, you know, he looked at me and, and said, said, you're going to be the death of me, girl. And I was like, what do you mean? He said, I. I would have never laid a finger on you had I known you were this inexperienced and this, you know, vulnerable. He knew. He knew Rachel.
- [42:06]
Rachel Johnson
The day Neil leaves, Scarlett catches Covid. Amanda and Scarlett's friend Misma look after her. But with Neil Gaiman gone, Scarlett feels mentally and physically broken. On the 7th of March, she's in Amanda's kitchen and she confides in her.
- [42:26]
Scarlett
I told her 10 days after he left, I told Amanda her words were, and I quote, I said, I. I said, Neil made a pass at me. And she said, I bet he did quote.
- [42:43]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlett uses that expression, made a pass at me. To open up a difficult discussion with Amanda Palmer. Scarlett says she told Amanda everything that night. They stay up until 2 in the morning talking. As it's too late for Scarlett to go home. She stays over. She says she could hear Amanda pacing around on the floor upstairs all night. Amanda, remember, wasn't just Neil Gaiman's wife. She's the person who hired Scarlett. She's an idol to her young female fans like Scarlett. And Amanda is very outspoken on violence against women and girls.
- [43:25]
Scarlett
This is what now upsets me to my core is like, when I told her, you know, and she was so, like, almost she'd known, she said I was the 14th fucking woman that had gone to her.
- [43:43]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlett recalls that number 14 specifically. She had also told a friend at the time that this was the number that Amanda Palmer said. Again, Amanda Palmer didn't respond to any of our inquiries. We understand, though, that Amanda passed on Scarlett's allegations to Neil Gaiman, advising him it's best to limit any further contact with her. Advice that goes unheeded. The fallout from Scarlett's chat with Amanda isn't immediate. Amanda texts Scarlett a few days later, saying Neil Gaiman owes her an apology and he. Whatsapps Scarlett saying. Amanda tells me that you are having a rough time and you are really upset with me about what we did. I feel awful about this. Would you like to talk about it? Scarlett goes to stay that night with her friend Misma and her partner Chris.
- [44:43]
Amanda Palmer
I remember I'm sitting here, she's over there, she's telling me all of this stuff, what happened in the bath, like things that happened afterwards. She's telling it in a way where it's really disturbing and full on, but she's also kind of making it funny.
- [45:00]
Rachel Johnson
I guess you'll already have heard how Scarlet does this. She tries to make light, even laugh when it comes to trauma and so.
- [45:08]
Amanda Palmer
We were like laughing and then I suppose my initial response was just like, this is really weird and very disturbing. And she couldn't see at that point how much he actually had used her. Whereas to Chris and I it was quite apparent that he would have known exactly that she was like easy prey for him.
- [45:34]
Rachel Johnson
As it happens, Misma's partner Chris wrote his PhD under a World renowned scholar of coercion, consent and sexual assault. Chris now lectures on these issues at the University of Auckland. Chris and Misma beg Scarlett to go and see one of Chris's friends. Paulette Benton Greig was living on the adjoining street to Neil Gaiman. Although she doesn't know him, she is a lawyer and academic specialising in sexual violence against women. Paulette also used to run a service for victims of sexual assault. While this appears to be a supportive group of people for Scarlett, Neil Gaiman's position is that Chris, Misma and Paulette have an academic interest in sexual consent and so influenced Scarlett to see her relationship with him as abusive. His thinking on them as a group is that they're all of the same worldview and that to the proverbial man with a hammer, every problem becomes a nail. Yet no one in this group told Scarlett what to think and that Neil Gaiman and Scarlett had a sexual relationship is undisputed by either. Scarlett went to speak to Paulette as a friend of a friend and Paulette says she was just there to listen.
- [46:54]
Paulette Benton Greig
She came to my house and we sat on the, in the sunshine, on the deck and we talked with each other. I think like most people after something's happened to them, she needed to kind of process and compute and think about what it meant for her.
- [47:11]
Rachel Johnson
What was your initial assessment of the relationship between Scarlett and Neil Gaiman?
- [47:19]
Paulette Benton Greig
I do remember very clearly forming the view that he had groomed her into sexual compliance. The stories that she told me about kind of how it was over the time that she was living in his house as a nanny just were classic grooming in my view. She described things like him being naked in the house and, you know, suggesting to her that if she didn't feel comfortable that with that, that was just prudish and we're all grown ups here and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
- [47:54]
Rachel Johnson
We understand that Neil Gaiman views the allegation that he groomed Scarlett to be a wholesale mischaracterisation and that the idea that an individual can groom an adult immediately upon meeting them or over a three week sexual relationship is far fetched. But law enforcement agencies do police grooming between adults. And experts have established that grooming can take place over a matter of weeks. The New Zealand Supreme Court has found grooming can happen after an initial serious sexual assault.
- [48:33]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Paulette, Chris and Ms. Ma are important in this story, not really because of their academic interests, but because Scarlett confides in them as friends soon after the alleged assault. In any normal criminal investigation, they would be interviewed by the police as first witnesses.
- [48:56]
Paulette Benton Greig
Neil had left, he had gone overseas and he had taken their child with him. But Amanda was still in New Zealand and she was still living in Neil's house. So I said to her, well, you know, maybe, you know, you really need to leave that place. You know, what kinds of resources do you have to be able to do that? And then she told me that they had not paid her. I remember just about falling off my chair at how extraordinarily clear the exploitation was in that moment.
- [49:26]
Rachel Johnson
So by the 13th of March, a month and a half after she moved to Waikiki, Scarlett hasn't even been paid properly. Neil Gaiman and his child have been gone more than two weeks. So Scarlett is left without money or. Or a job, stuck on Waiheki. By this point, she's spoken about what Neil Gaiman did and what they did together to Paulette, to her friends Misma and Chris, and to Amanda.
- [49:55]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Waihiki is a small island, but Misma and Amanda have only met once. They aren't friends. But later that month, Misma receives a text from Amanda thanking her for her part in looking after Scarlett after Neil Gaiman left. She adds, it's been a rough month for everyone. Missma is furious and feels Amanda Palmer is massively understating what Scarlett has been through. The casualness, the lack of concern. She sends Amanda an 800 word tirade. Here are some bits of it. She's writing off the back of what she's heard from Scarlet.
- [50:45]
Misma
It strikes me that perhaps you haven't grasped the severity of the situation. Yes, Scarlet did confide in us, and so we know that the first time he had anal sex, it was so violent that she lost consciousness from the pain. That her description of watching the sex happen to her from outside of her body is congruent with accounts of rape survivors. We know that he is 40 years older than her and that she was employed as his and your nanny at the time. We know that you knew exactly what kind of person Nell is when you put Scarlet into his house. I consider Scarlet, among many other more positive attributes, to be one of the most vulnerable people I have ever met. I know the thing she most desperately wants is to feel included and loved, to be part of a family, that she would do anything, take any amount of shit in order to not be rejected. Chris and I are both so worried about Scarlet, who will spend years coming to terms with this experience. And we are also deeply concerned about the likelihood of this happening to other women. Eventually, this is all going to come out.
- [51:59]
Rachel Johnson
So how come you wrote that note? You said you didn't know Amanda very well. That was a very punchy note to.
- [52:07]
Misma
Send to her because I was so.
- [52:10]
Amanda Palmer
Fucking angry with Amanda for putting Scarlett in that situation. I'm glad I wrote that note because it contains a lot of what Scarlett actually told me at the time. I was so blunt and explicit, I guess, in my message. And her response was not, oh, my God, I don't know what you're talking about. This is the message from a crazy person. But I did think it was very interesting that she got what are you talking about?
- [52:38]
Paul Caruana Galizia
In her reply to Misma, Amanda says, I did not know much of this. It is horrifying. I understand what you have said and I deeply appreciate you sharing it with me. This is a very fucking bad situation. The interesting thing is last night Scarlett shared her WhatsApp history with Neil. So chats, videos, photos, and the really unusual thing for a reporter is it allows us to see the same issue from very different angles.
- [53:32]
Scarlett
The messages are really hard for me to go through because of, you know, my delusion and, like, and just I, you know, I'm so furious with myself.
- [53:41]
Paul Caruana Galizia
What arrives in my inbox is Scarlett's full WhatsApp history with Neil Gaiman. Not just one or two messages, but everything.
- [53:51]
Scarlett
Hi, Neil, how are you? I miss you so much. As I said in my text, I hope that you're doing all right. Let me know. I worry I am doing better today. I've been terrible.
- [54:07]
Paul Caruana Galizia
There are files of photos and videos and pages and pages of messages, and.
- [54:14]
Scarlett
I'm sending you all my love.
- [54:19]
Paul Caruana Galizia
It's the messages from Scarlet to Neil Gaiman that bring us up short. There are a lot of messages like this and they're even more shocking. If anything, they appear to tell a very different story. A story of rough sex and two consenting adults. One that seems to match Neil Gaiman's account.
- [55:01]
Rachel Johnson
This series is reported by me, Rachel Johnson, and by Paul Caruana Galizia. It is written by us and by Katie Gunning, who is also the producer. Sound design and original music is by Tom Kinsella. Additional reporting is by Jess Swinburne Artwork is by John Hill. The series editor is Matt Russell. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Tortoise.