The Celebrity Abusers Thread

[Chili]

I genuinely have no idea who he is until he popped up in this thread.

[Tamura]

30 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I can quite easily avoid reading his work, but my daughter LOVES Coraline. How do you even navigate that?

Amend your will.

[Chest Rockwell]

Fucking hell what a depressing read. Abused, abusive, and now continuing the cycle with his own kid. 

[deathrey]

I think Chest summed it up pretty well. A really difficult read, took me two attempts to finish it. I know the situation is complicated for Amanda Palmer but she comes across as an enabler here and I'm so disappointed in women treating women that way. She also needs to protect her son.

[neil]

What a disgusting read that was, an absolutely foul and deplorable human.

14 hours ago, deathrey said:

I know the situation is complicated for Amanda Palmer but she comes across as an enabler here

I see far too much stuff talking about her rather than the disgusting crimes that Gaiman committed...so in a way I don't want to comment, but I lived and know various people in Boston who have numerous stories of her where lets just say "looking out for herself at the cost of others" isn't a new thing.

[BomberPat]

yeah - Amanda Palmer shouldn't be the focus, and I've seen a lot of people try and make her out to be complicit, whereas in many ways she seems to be as lost and manipulated and kept in the dark and probably treated like shit as anyone else, and who knows what she might have been through along the way. Maybe one day she'll say her piece about him. The timeline of events definitely makes it seem like he got much worse once they were separated, but then that might just be because those are the stories we're predominantly hearing, nothing more. I'd say it would be interesting to hear from Gaiman's first wife too, but given I believe she was a Scientologist too, who knows whether she'd go on the record about anything.

I mentioned yesterday about removing a lot of the Gaiman books from my house - I was a big Dresden Dolls fan, and my partner is a big Amanda Palmer fan, so we've got her book too, got a framed poster in the bedroom, and other bits of merch and memorabilia scattered all over the place, and reckoning with that feels a lot more complicated. I soured on her myself a while ago, just seeing her as a narcissist who tends to exploit her position and treat people appallingly, building up a bit of a personality cult around her and acting as if it's a one-for-all and all-for-one commune of artists chipping into together, without recognising her relative power and influence over others, or the fact that she was for much of that time married to a very wealthy and culturally powerful and respected man.

A lot of that - the lack of boundaries, and the expectation of free labour - comes across very clearly in that article. It's obviously nowhere near on the level of the horrific things Gaiman was doing, and it's a bit of an open question how complicit she was in all of those things, or how much she knew about what he was up to. For all her faults, I can't bring myself to imagine that she knew he was effectively abusing their child and still gave him access.

 

One thing I really recognise in Gaiman's reported behaviour, and the denial from his camp, is that he's using the language of BDSM and open relationships as a shield, and those scenes are full of abusive men who see it as an opportunity to act with impunity. People who think that being "dominant" is an excuse to treat partners like shit, that an open relationship just means free license to sleep whoever you want, and people who set themselves up as experienced elders or mentors within the scene to give themselves an opportunity to prey on inexperienced younger people who lack the experience to understand the rules and boundaries, or the courage to speak out. The only difference between him and a thousand other creeps is that he had money and power. I could suggest that it was the open relationship with Palmer that gave him some of the language and the mechanisms by which he subsequently abused people, but he's a smart man, and an award-winning, millions-selling author, so it's not like he needs help with words and manipulation.

[Mr_Danger]

I think the expectation of men is a lot lower than the expectation of women when it comes to this sort of thing. A rich white guy doing horrible stuff to a vulnerable woman? Well duh. Another woman enabling that? Well that’s a bit rum. Obviously Gaiman should be held to account above all others and the discussion should remain focussed on him but you see where the line of thinking comes from. It’s more shocking in a way. That and obviously wrongun’s online just trying to make everything the fault of a female like how everyone is outraged at the girlfriend of that bloke in the news who emotionally and physically abused his partner to death.

[deathrey]

I'm not in any way excusing Gaiman's behaviour or trying to make Amanda a scape goat, the responsibility for his behaviour is on him and him alone, and as other's have mentioned, he is an intelligent man who has targeted vulnerable women and knows exactly what he was doing.

I haven't seen any other coverage online as this is pretty much the only place I frequent where people share opinions so I wasn't aware of people blaming Amanda Palmer. I think, as @Mr_Danger touched on, as a women, there is an unwritten expectation that other women will look out for each other when it comes to predators and I'm just highlighting my disappointment in her not being an ally to a very vulnerable women and throwing her in the eye of the storm with a man she arguably knew was abusive to other women. The article does seem to say that she acted very quickly in protecting her son once she knew he had been a witness.

Unless I misunderstood, it doesn't look like any criminal charges are being pressed against Gaiman? His behaviour is barbaric and they really should be.

Edited January 14, 2025 by deathrey

[RedTwoster]

I’m not entirely sure this belongs here, but I’m a bit disappointed by the way the BBC has presented the sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth in this article.

Obviously they can’t accuse him of anything or present anything outside of the facts, but choosing to run a header part way through the article reading ‘sexual assault, or smear campaign?’ strikes me as a bit irresponsible. I fully accept the rest of the article treats the allegations relatively responsibly, but the decision to run headers like that is the kind of thing that discourages people from reporting assaults for fear of not being believed. It creates an added layer of ambiguity and almost sides with the accused by adding weight to the suggestion there might be a smear campaign. 

In the grand scheme of this thread I guess it’s a smaller issue, but I do fear we’re entering another era where many assaults go unreported and where powerful men get away with truly horrific acts, and the media has to be extremely careful about how they treat allegations like this, so they are not part of the problem.

[DavidB6937]

49 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I’m not entirely sure this belongs here, but I’m a bit disappointed by the way the BBC has presented the sexual assault allegations against Pete Hegseth in this article.

Obviously they can’t accuse him of anything or present anything outside of the facts, but choosing to run a header part way through the article reading ‘sexual assault, or smear campaign?’ strikes me as a bit irresponsible. I fully accept the rest of the article treats the allegations relatively responsibly, but the decision to run headers like that is the kind of thing that discourages people from reporting assaults for fear of not being believed. It creates an added layer of ambiguity and almost sides with the accused by adding weight to the suggestion there might be a smear campaign. 

In the grand scheme of this thread I guess it’s a smaller issue, but I do fear we’re entering another era where many assaults go unreported and where powerful men get away with truly horrific acts, and the media has to be extremely careful about how they treat allegations like this, so they are not part of the problem.

Wording is massively important, especially in obvious headlines/headers etc. That's what grabs attention. That's what will stick in peoples minds. People will naturally skim read if they're not 100% invested in the article and just take the main points.

[LaGoosh]

Gaiman is such a weird one for me to process. I'm a huge fan of The Sandman and it's breaking my brain that someone who can write stories and characters with such incredible empathy is so fucking evil and cruel. I'm struggling to get my head around it.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Gino D'Acamapo next to get what's coming to him. Delightful.

 

Currently listening to:

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87d283ld9do

Gaiman's ex is now denying trafficking

[Thunderplex]

Iain Lee has uploaded a very disturbing but brave video on YouTube about him being sexually abused when a member of the Cub scouts.  It looks like he’s rallying others in the same pack to come forward to get some kind of retribution.  Best of luck to him.

[davertfnewman]

Fair play to him, I understand already that his experiences had led him to drug and alcohol abuse and that he'd really struggled with it while trying his best to overcome the horrible things that were troubling him.