Neil Gaiman Rocked By Sixth Accuser While Details of Crisis Management Social Media Bot Campaign Emerge
Neil Gaiman appeared to know these allegations were coming as a sixth woman comes forward to detail abuse from The Sandman creator.
Neil Gaiman’s troubles keep compounding while the mainstream media remains silent on the Sandman creator’s alleged behaviors. Now, a sixth accuser has made a video about him. It appears the P.R. firm running a bot campaign to bury the story was hired two months before the situation—meaning Neil Gaiman was aware this scandal would be breaking wide open.
The first allegations against Neil Gaiman were hit from the Tortoise podcast, an investigative journalism outlet named for the Tortoise and the Hare fable, leaning toward “slow and steady wins the race.” They are well-known for doing deep dives on situations and gathering all of the information to ensure accuracy before reporting.
During their first round of podcasts on Neil Gaiman, they revealed two women who accused the American Gods author of sexual assault—one who was his granddaughter’s age and acting as the babysitter/nanny of his child at the time. Neil Gaiman responded by saying they only cuddled in a bathtub, making the situation sound suspicious.
A third woman came out by revealing her therapy sessions after years of alleged manipulation by Gaiman, but then Tortoise revealed fourth and fifth accusers with very similar stories. The last may be the worst of all, as the woman alleges that Neil Gaiman blackmailed her by forcing her to do sexual acts in exchange for maintaining a place to live for her and her three daughters on his New York Estate.
Now, a sixth accuser has come forward, alleging that Gaiman used and manipulated her. This woman, who does not identify herself but has a current YouTube channel name that goes by CFR, posted a reaction to the Tortoise interviews a month ago detailing her experience with the Sandman creator.
In the video, she describes how Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman’s ex-wife, set up a massage while she was working as a massage therapist. Palmer opted to share the massage with Gaiman and split the time, which is how this person met Gaiman. In the massage, CFR alleges Neil came out standing fully nude and flashed her.
“I didn’t try to talk about my intimate exchanges with Neil very much out of respect for our friendship. I didn’t want to make too big a deal of it,” the victim says. “But every once in a while, when I’d go back to a social media platform, I’d ask him to refollow me for the clout.”
The story is very similar to the other fans who were caught up in Gaiman’s mystique as a famous author. The women have all detailed how they, deep down, didn’t want to engage in acts but kept going forward because they wanted to be a part of his entourage.
In addition to the new accusations, it appears that the bot campaign created by the PR firm Neil Gaiman hired for crisis management was going on for at least two months prior to the Tortoise interview. This implies that Neil Gaiman knew the allegations were coming and was starting his damage control well before any details were released.
The Reddit post on Neil Gaiman Uncovered reveals that a Gaiman Facebook group had a surge of new members related to the timing of the campaign and that this was occurring before the Tortoise podcast release. One Reddit user posted, “The interesting note to me was that these apparent bots started in May, approx TWO MONTHS before the podcast launch. Neil's team appear to have started damage control as soon as they got wind of the story about to break (I imagine when Tortoise reached out for comment).”
With details constantly emerging from new women, and a Crisis Management campaign ongoing to try to soften the blow, Neil Gaiman is facing serious trouble with his public perception. Online discourse has changed, with much of the discussion initially being defensive of Gaiman. Still, now, increasingly, we are seeing more voicing anger, frustration, and disappointment with the Sandman creator.
What do you think of the new allegations regarding Neil Gaiman and the bot campaign? Leave a comment and let us know.
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