A Word To The Wise
You now have front row seats for what's about to go down.
What a week.
Everything seems to have happened at once.
I want to personally thank each and every one of you who has taken to time to send messages of appreciation, to subscribe and to share and to show your support and your gratitude in a million ways.
I can tell this has meant so much to so many of you, not just as fans of Neil and his work, but also as those who have had misgivings about the allegations from the start and have found yourselves alienated, silenced, derided and defamed.
You should never be afraid to state a simple, honest opinion, for pointing out facts, for identifying discrepancies, for being a full, expressive, aware human being. You have every right to use your voice, and your mind, and to come to your own conclusions.
You are not ‘rape apologists’.
You are not ‘victim blamers’.
You are not ‘misogynists’.
To a tee, every person who has come forth to throw support behind this project has been a thoughtful, ethically grounded individual, standing up for fairness, justice and critical thinking.
In a bizarre twist, it has been the army of Neil’s detractors that has among it the sorts of lowlife that they accuse us of being. The antisemite Vox Day aka Theodore Beale was observed slinking around anti-Gaiman boards, trying to solicit interviews for Jon Del Arroz, aiming to amplify the allegations in any way he could. My research uncovered an absolute goblin-pit of antisemites and transphobes gleefully pushing this story. And this is before we even get started on Rachel Johnson and her ally Julie Bindel.
While it cannot account for the case in and of itself, it’s a travesty that so many who consider themselves on the left, progressive, or otherwise on the side of the marginalised have been swept along by those with sinister intent, unwilling to reflect for even a moment on the evidence before their eyes.
Now, as at the start of this investigation, the central question is how we talk to each other. How we discuss, how we exchange ideas, how we deal with differences of opinion and evidence that contradicts what we believe.
I invite you all to participate in the subreddit r/NeilGaimanIsInnocent, a bastion of critical thinking and compassionate skepticism where we attempt to heal our broken ways of relating, where we do not treat difference of opinion as evidence of evil, but hope through respectful discussion to come to an ever-clearer picture of the world.
We are now paying the price of the post-truth era, and that applies whether it is ICE denying that they have shot an innocent protestor in cold blood, or so-called journalists denying that they engaged every trick in the book to dismiss the mountain of evidence that exonerates Neil. These instances of deception are neither morally nor politically equivalent, but I believe that they stem from the same pathological lack of respect for evidence and reason, driven in part by technology, but also laziness and the unreflecting indulgence of our darker impulses.
Seeing fans and general critical thinkers raise valid points, only to be shut down by those without even basic knowledge of the case, was disheartening, but it also gave me the drive to press on with this work, which has often meant rising before the sun and typing away long into the night.
This is a case with so many different elements; 5 claimants (not 9 as the MSM still insists without basis), five hours of podcast material in Master, an 11,000 word article in Lila Shapiro’s There Is No Safe Word, pages upon pages of Court Documents, WhatsApps messages, images, emails, as well as interviews conducted to be published in the coming weeks and months. And more still coming each day.
This is an evidence based investigation, but my opinion and occasional speculation is here, presented as such. You don’t need to take my word for anything, and I exhort you to critical thinking at ever stage. Every article has an email at the bottom. If you see a flaw in logic, a simple error, or even a typo, by all means flag it up.
This is not just the work of one individual, I’m continually glad of an early decision to open the investigation up to crowdsourcing. A supporter like yourself volunteered a claimant’s social media posts which they had the foresight to save, messages which were later publicly deleted by the claimant. Without this civilian detective work the investigation would be missing in crucial puzzle pieces and I thank you all for these contributions.
I’m currently considering how to give due appreciation to those who are paid subscribers, that you will receive more than just my gratitude, and to give you a ‘backstage pass’.
For those who cannot quite afford a full subscription, you can get in contact with me to offer what you can, as others have done already. I appreciate your enthusiasm and willingness to support much more than mere lucre.
For the moment, I would like to let you all in on as much as I can about the coming weeks and months and give you front row seats.
The next stage is about detail. I will piece together the stories from all available sources, with start-to-finish approach. Molly Scarlett Pavlovich as the first and primary claimant, the most documentary evidence being in my possession, will be the first.
This will involve extensive material that has not yet been published that throws even more light on the contextual circumstances, as well as the private turmoils of the people involved.
Starting with the beginning, how Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer and their son came to live on Waiheke Island, how Molly Scarlett Pavlovich came into their lives, who she is, and how each moment unfolded from there on in, at least as much as we can discern and infer from the evidence.
Additionally this will satisfy much in the way of curiosity about the life and persona of Neil Gaiman. While I will leave you to come to your own conclusions, to my mind he comes across as very decent throughout. His famous kindness is clearly no act — but he also seems human, besieged, under pressure, battling anxiety and depression, and despite his wealth and fame, very vulnerable.
That he’s been put in this situation at all may anger you, but an important word, and one that I’m sure I do not need to say to the wise, but I shall anyway: I do not support or approve of any sort of hatred, abuse or animosity towards these women. We must understand that human motivations are labyrinthine, hidden, ever hard to discern. We can begin to figure out ‘what happened’, but we cannot presume to know what others are thinking beyond what the evidence suggests.
Having said that, I cannot criticise one House of Effie’s clear anger as a survivor. She believes, due to insider knowledge, that these claimants have used #MeToo cynically as a tool to extort Neil Gaiman when he showed them kindness. She has every right to make her feelings and perspective known and has recently started her own substack.
But I personally try not to impute motivation too strongly. Confabulation, especially under times of stress, as a result of shame or feelings of abandonment, is an ever-present possibility. So I request personally, don’t judge these claimants, we are asking ‘what happened’ not ‘who is to blame’.
Having said that, I do not mince my words when it comes to the media establishment. Both Rachel Johnson, Paul Caruana Galizia and Lila Shapiro have much to answer for the many omissions, sleights of hand and fabrications that they conducted in their search for the ultimate shock-horror #MeToo scandal. I have also received reports that their behaviour behind the scene was essentially to promise that many, many more claimants would soon emerge.
And they never did.
The wider media world is as much to blame for this with their blithe parroting. So-called journalists never even took the basic steps, to read the original articles or listen to the podcasts and so repeat initial errors as if they were established fact. It’s a mess.
That this has gone on without comment, and that even now retractions and corrections remain unissued shines a light on the obvious abuses of the profession, those that we rely on for information on these most critical of subjects.
Some have even tried to cast doubt on my credentials, without evidence. If being a journalist today means to be little more than a mouthpiece, or a grinning sycophant cranking the gears of an echo machine, then I’m not sure I’d be too proud of the job description.
But I am proud of my work. I am proud to be the first one, though soon I won’t be the only one. Respect to those who have recently been inspired to take up the mantle of the reporter, and perhaps in so doing restore a bit of nobility to the profession.
Thanks again to all of you. Though in Neil Gaiman we are certainly coming to the aid of a wounded paladin, it’s clear we are doing so much more than helping just one wronged writer. Something begins here. This is a fightback, a rebellion against the post-truth era, and I could not have wished for better comrades.
I welcome constructive feedback to strengthen this work:
Please keep comments under 200 words so I can feature as many as possible.
If wording is unclear or could be misinterpreted, I’ll revise for clarity.
If you spot a factual or logical inconsistency, I’ll gladly correct or refine it.
Abuse or bad-faith commentary will not be tolerated.
📩 Send contributions to: neil_gaiman_is_innocent@mail.com
💬 Feel free to chat — whether it’s thoughts, questions, or just reflections, we’d love to hear from you at r/NeilGaimanIsInnocent
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✦ Next Up
Coming Soon.
✦ Table of Contents
✦ Listening
I’ll be including some of the music at the end of each article. This series can be heavy reading, so I offer you the opportunity for a break and drink in the sounds that inspired radicals then and now.