Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits filed by bestselling fantasy author Neil Gaiman alleging he sexually abused his children’s nanny. New Zealand Four years ago.
Scarlett Pavlovich sued Gaiman and his wife Amanda Palmer in Wisconsin in February 2025, alleging Gaiman sexually assaulted her in 2022 while she worked as the family’s nanny. She sued Palmer in Massachusetts and filed her Wisconsin action on the same day in Wisconsin.
Gaiman has a home in northwest Wisconsin and Palmer lives in Massachusetts. Pavlovich explained in court documents that she had to drop the New York lawsuit against Palmer in May because Palmer had recently relocated from New York to Massachusetts and she did not know which state had jurisdiction. US District Judge Mary Kay Wyskosil in New York approved the request in June.
Pavlovich also dropped part of the Wisconsin lawsuit against Palmer in May, and US District Judge James Peterson in Madison dismissed the rest in October, saying Pavlovich needed to pursue the case in New Zealand. US District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston threw out the Massachusetts filing on the same grounds on Friday.
Attorneys for Pavlovich did not respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday. Attorneys listed for Gaiman and Palmer also did not respond to messages.
AP does not publicly identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Pavlovich identified himself in an interview with New York magazine, which published a story in January 2025 detailing allegations of assault, abuse and coercion by eight women.
Pavlovich alleges in her lawsuits that she was 22 and homeless when she met Palmer in Auckland in 2020. Palmer invited Pavlovich to the couple’s Waiheke Island home, and she eventually became a nanny for their son.
Pavlovich alleges in the lawsuits that Gaiman sexually assaulted her the night they met in February 2022. The assaults continued, but she continued to work for the couple because she was broke and homeless, and Gaiman told her he would help her with her writing career, according to the filings.
When she told Palmer about the assaults, Palmer told her that more than a dozen women had previously told him that Gaiman had sexually assaulted them, according to the lawsuits. The assaults stopped when Pavlovich told Palmer she was going to kill herself, according to the filings.
Pavlovich alleged that Palmer was aware of Gaiman’s sexual desires and submitted her to him knowing he would assault her. She argued that Gaiman and Palmer violated federal human trafficking bans and demanded at least $7 million in damages.
Gaiman released a statement after the New York Magazine article was published, denying that he had ever had non-consensual sex with anyone.
Gaiman’s lawyers argued in a motion to dismiss the Wisconsin lawsuit that Gaiman and Pavlovich had a brief personal relationship involving “consensual physical intimacy.”
Police in New Zealand investigated her assault allegations and found them to be without merit, the motion said. Lawyers argued that Pavlovich’s lawsuits were the culmination of a plan to smear Gaiman and that any legal disputes should be settled in New Zealand, not the United States.
Gaiman has written several works of science fiction and fantasy, including novels such as American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, and the dark children’s fairy tale Coraline.
His 2013 novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, won the National Book Award in Britain.
