Neil Gaiman suing accuser over breaking NDA

Vulture reports Neil Gaiman is seeking financial compensation from Caroline Wallner — his former tenant, and one of the women who accused of him of sexual assault — over breaking her non-disclosure agreement. The author, 64, reportedly paid Wallner $275,000 in exchange for her silence about his alleged two-year period of misconduct from 2018 to 2020, and is now purportedly seeking $500,000, to cover the cost of the repayment, attorneys’ fees, and penalties for each interview she has given to the media.

The decision was apparently spurred by Wallner’s own claim to legal arbitration, filed last year, accusing Gaiman of not following the NDA either, because his lawyer had allegedly not destroyed the evidence of their “engagement” like they had agreed to. Vincent White, Wallner’s lawyer, told Vulture he was surprised by Gaiman’s decision, explaining allegedly abusive men rarely sue women over violating their NDAs because of the poor light it paints them in. He says, “Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, the allegation must be true.’ I would think he may have come to the conclusion he has nothing left to lose.”

A spokesperson for Gaiman responded, “Wallner’s purported claims are completely meritless. We have no doubt that we will prevail in arbitration — and that Ms. Wallner’s actions will result in her having to pay Neil’s legal fees.” Gaiman has previously admitted that he has been “careless” and “selfish” in his relationships, but denies committing “any abuse” or “non-consensual sexual activity,” and said he was “not willing to turn my back on the truth,” or “accept being described as someone I am not, and cannot and will not admit to doing things I didn’t do.”

Wallner, a potter, and her then husband, a builder, were initially tenants on Gaiman’s property in Woodstock, New York. She said that when they divorced, Gaiman approached her for sex, and she agreed, fearing he would ask her and her three daughters to leave the property. It ended when he moved to New Zealand at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she decided to ignore his messages; he asked her to leave and negotiated the NDA later in 2021. Wallner’s ex-husband is also named in Gaiman’s legal claim, because he signed the NDA as well.

This is the second legal case Gaiman is now involved in, after his former nanny, Scarlett Pavlovich, filed a federal lawsuit against him and his ex-partner, Amanda Palmer, seeking millions in damages on several charges, including allegedly trafficking her, sexually assaulting her, and inflicting emotional distress. Gaiman has asked for that lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing it should be heard in New Zealand, where the abuse allegedly took place, instead of the United States, while calling Pavlovich a “fantasist”. Only time will tell how both cases, or any further possible ones involving his other accusers, will proceed.