Former nanny claims in lawsuit that author Neil Gaiman raped her repeatedly

The former nanny of best-selling fantasy writer Neil Gaiman and his estranged wife, Amanda Palmer, claims in a lawsuit that Gaiman raped her repeatedly and demanded that she call him “master.”

Scarlett Pavlovich filed lawsuits in federal court in Massachusetts, New York and Wisconsin on Monday, accusing Gaiman and Palmer of violating federal human trafficking prohibitions. She is seeking over $7 million in damages. 

Pavlovich and four other women came forward with abuse allegations against Gaiman in July on a podcast titled “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.” Five women, including Pavlovich (who did not use her full name in the podcast), accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Pavlovich later came forward with her full name and detailed the allegations of abuse in a New York Magazine story published last month, which included allegations from a total of eight women. 

Pavlovich said she was 22 when met the couple in 2020 in Auckland, New Zealand. She said Palmer invited her to her home on Waiheke Island, which is about a 40-minute ferry ride from Auckland. She began working for the couple first by running errands, then by babysitting their son and helping with chores, according to the suit.

Gaiman, a British writer now living in Wisconsin, has written nearly 50 books, many of which have been adapted for film and TV, including “The Sandman” and “Coraline.” Palmer, who lives in upstate New York, made her mark as part of the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls. The two announced they were getting divorced in 2022.  

Gaiman previously denied allegations made by accusers in a statement on his website last month. “I’m far from a perfect person, but I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever,” he wrote. 

He said he regrets being “obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings,” calling it “selfish.” But “[s]ome 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.

Before the lawsuit was filed, Palmer posted on Instagram that she could not comment, “as there are ongoing custody and divorce proceedings.” The couple, who married in 2011, have one child together.

Gaiman and Palmer did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Neither has publicly commented on the recent lawsuits. 

The lawsuit says: “Gaiman engaged in many nonconsensual sex acts with Scarlett. Those acts were abusive and demeaning. … Scarlett endured those acts because she would lose her job, housing, and promised future career support if she did not.”

Palmer played a role in “procuring and presenting” Pavlovich to her husband, according to court documents. “More than a dozen women, including several former employees, had previously come to Palmer about abusive sexual encounters with Gaiman,” the lawsuit says.

Pavlovich “had nowhere to go” and would have been homeless if she left, according to the lawsuit, which describes Pavlovich as the couple’s “economic hostage.” 

“Scarlett knew that she had only two choices: she could either submit to Gaiman’s coercion and violence or she could try to escape,” the lawsuit says. 

When Pavlovich met the couple, it says, she was penniless and “sleeping on the beach.” Pavlovich, who is lesbian, was also grappling with “substantial mental health difficulties.” Pavlovich had also been raped at age 15 by a middle-age man, the suit says.

Palmer was aware of her history, Pavlovich said in the court documents.

Pavlovich said she was at Gaiman’s house in New Zealand when the first sexual assault happened on Feb. 4, 2022. She said that Gaiman, who was 61 at the time, called her his “slave” and that the assaults continued until she told Palmer she would kill herself and was hospitalized.

“Some incidents took place in the presence of Gaiman and Palmer’s child,” the lawsuit says.

After Pavlovich was released from the hospital, the papers say, Gaiman paid her for the babysitting she had done and helped cover her rent for a few months.

Pavlovich alleged that when she reported the rapes to the police, she thought Palmer would back up her charges, because she “had expressed disgust for what Gaiman had done, calling him ‘Weinstein’ and predicting he would be inevitably ‘MeTooed’.”

“Her hope was in vain,” the papers say. “The police took no action because Palmer refused to talk to them.”

Gaiman has experienced some professional fallout since the allegations surfaced last year. Dark Horse Comics said on X last month that it would no longer publish his works. A planned movie adaptation of one of his books was reportedly put on pause.