Neil Gaiman has said that multiple sexual assault allegations against him are “simply untrue” and claimed to be the victim of a “smear campaign”, in the first post addressing the accusations for almost a year.

Gaiman, 65, author of novels including American Gods and the Ocean at the End of the Lane, has faced allegations of sexual abuse and coercive behaviour, which were outlined in a podcast by the Tortoise Media team in July 2024.

When New York Magazine published its own investigation in January 2025, Gaiman made a statement insisting he had “never engaged in nonconsensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever”.

Nine women have come forward to accuse Gaiman of sexual misconduct, including Scarlett Pavlovich, the former nanny to Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer. The couple, who have a son together, are going through a divorce.

On Monday evening Gaiman posted on his Facebook author page for the first time since the allegations broke, save for a book-related post in November, to say he had “learned first-hand how effective a smear campaign can be”.

“The allegations against me are completely and simply untrue. There are emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict them,” he said.

“These allegations, especially the really salacious ones, have been spread and amplified by people who seemed a lot more interested in outrage and getting clicks on headlines rather than whether things had actually happened or not. (They didn’t.)”

Gaiman said he had hoped there would be journalistic investigations that “would take the (mountains of) evidence into account” but he had been “astonished to see how much of the reporting was simply an echo chamber, and how the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored”.

He added: “One thing that’s kept me going through all this madness is the conviction that the truth would, eventually, come out.”

Since the allegations were published, one of Gaiman’s comic publishers, Dark Horse, has dropped him, while DC Comics, publishers of the Sandman, pulled a planned reprint of his work from its schedule. A stage play of Gaiman’s children’s book Coraline was cancelled a year ago after the claims against him.

Gaiman also revealed that, despite the condemnation he has faced and many fans turning against him, he had begun writing again and was close to finishing a new novel.

“Thank you again to so many of you for your belief in my innocence and your support for my work. It has meant the world to me,” he said.

Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path, has denied fresh allegations that she stole money from members of her family, describing the claims as part of a “false narrative” about her life.

The writer responded after her niece alleged that Winn had written a letter more than a decade ago setting out details of taking money from her mother and from her parents-in-law. Winn has strongly denied the allegations and said she did not write the letter.

The Observer said it verified the contents of the alleged letter, which appear in a new Sky documentary, with four members of Winn’s family and four relatives of her husband, Timothy “Moth” Walker. It reported that Winn’s niece said the letter had been given to her by Winn’s sister before her death last year. Winn reportedly declined an invitation to meet and discuss the allegations. A statement issued by representatives for Winn, whose real name is Sally Walker, dismissed the claims.

“Tortoise Media’s Observer and documentary makers continue to spread a false narrative about my life, despite me having addressed them in my earlier statement,” she said.

“It is a great source of sadness that Tortoise Media’s Observer and documentary makers are now seeking to drive a wedge between our family members. The family have always been able to share their concerns privately, and they still can.

“I did not steal from family, as others can confirm. Nor have I confessed to doing so and I did not write the letter suggesting I did.”

The latest claims follow an ongoing controversy in which Winn has been accused of fabricating aspects of her bestselling 2018 memoir. The Salt Path describes Winn’s experience of walking the 630-mile South West Coast Path with Moth, after the couple lost their home in Wales, and Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

An investigation by the Observer presented legal documents and witnesses who alleged that the couple lost their home after Winn took out a private mortgage to repay tens of thousands of pounds she was alleged to have taken from her employer. The couple’s account that long-distance walking reversed Moth’s symptoms has also been questioned by medical experts.

In the latest allegation, Winn’s niece claims that Winn typed a letter confessing that she had taken £25,000 from her husband’s parents after getting into financial difficulty. The alleged incident is said to have happened around the same time that Winn was accused of taking £67,000 from her employer in 2008. In a July statement, Winn said: “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”

The Observer reported that the letter was addressed to Winn’s sister and states: “Please don’t look any further for the money. I’ve taken it. All of it. I have to ask you not to take things any further with the bank, but tell them it was just a mistake … I have a police record and should this go any further I will go to prison this time.

“In a mid panic when the mortgage was threatening to foreclose, I transferred £25,000 from Tim’s mum and dad’s account to Tim’s.” It also says that the couple were forced to live in a barn conversion on their property after being left with hardly any money.

Winn is said to have made millions of pounds from sales of the memoir, events and the film adaptation of The Salt Path, which starred Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

In the statement responding to the new claims, Winn reiterated that her husband was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, now often referred to as corticobasal syndrome, describing this as “a fact”, and said the couple lost their home because of “a financial dispute with a lifelong friend, as described in the book”.

“To everyone who has read and loved my books, thank you,” she said. “Nothing has changed. The Salt Path remains my honest recollection of the time when we lost our house and found hope on the coast path.”

Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path, has described enduring some of the “hardest days” of her life as she defended her memoir against allegations that parts of it were fabricated.

The bestselling 2018 book, which was adapted into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, tells how she and her husband, Moth, walked the 630-mile trek along the south-west coast path in the UK after losing their home.

It also recounts how Moth was diagnosed with a neurological condition.

But the Observer newspaper, which said the couple’s legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, reported last weekend that Winn may have misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their home and that experts had cast doubt over Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD).

On Wednesday, Winn posted clinic letters on Instagram addressed to Timothy Walker, which she said showed that “he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years”.

She wrote: “The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life. Heartbreaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated.”

In a statement on her website, she said that the article was “grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life”.

Winn, 63, continued: “The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south-west.

“It’s not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope.

“The journey held within those pages is one of salt and weather, of pain and possibility. And I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many.”

In The Salt Path, the couple lose their house due to a bad business investment. But the Observer reported that the couple lost their home after an accusation that Winn had stolen thousands of pounds from her employer.

It also said that it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them.

Winn’s publishing house, Penguin, said it “undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence”, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read.

It added: “Prior to the Observer inquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book’s content.”

PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), said it had “terminated” its relationship with the couple after the Observer article.

Winn had been scheduled to make numerous appearances this summer, performing with Saltlines, her collaboration with Gigspanner Big Band. However, the band subsequently announced on social media that she will no longer be taking part in the tour.

A US publisher of comics by Neil Gaiman has announced that it has cancelled plans to publish future works by the author who has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.

Dark Horse Comics “takes seriously the allegations against Neil Gaiman and we are no longer publishing his works,” the company wrote in a statement on X.

“Confirming that the Anansi Boys comic series and collected volume have been cancelled,” it added. Dark Horse Comics began publishing the Anansi Boys series, an adaptation of Gaiman’s 2005 novel of the same name, in June last year. It was intended to be an eight-issue series, but has now been cancelled following the seventh issue, published 15 January.

Nine women have now accused Gaiman of sexual misconduct. On 14 January, the author published a statement on his website saying that he had “never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone”. Gaiman’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment on Dark Horse Comics’ statement.

HarperCollins, which publishes many of Gaiman’s books in the US including Coraline and American Gods, told Publishers Weekly that it does not have any new books by Gaiman scheduled. WW Norton, the US publisher of Gaiman’s book Norse Mythology, said that it will not have projects with the author going forward, though did not say whether this was connected to the allegations. Marvel Comics has no new works by Gaiman in progress, according to the New York Times.

Other publishers of Gaiman’s work – including Bloomsbury, Penguin, Hachette, DC Comics and Titan – have not yet made public statements about whether they will continue to publish the author, and did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

Last July, an investigation by Tortoise media reported sexual assault allegations against Gaiman by two women. By the end of August, three further women had come forward with allegations. On 13 January, Vulture published an investigation in which four further women accused Gaiman of assault, including nonconsensual BDSM.

The following day, Gaiman said in his statement that he had refrained from speaking publicly so far “out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation”.

“I don’t accept there was any abuse,” he said. “Some of the horrible stories now being told simply never happened, while others have been so distorted from what actually took place that they bear no relationship to reality.”

Several television adaptations of Gaiman’s works have been cancelled or had their production paused. Prime Video’s Good Omens, based on the novel by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, will now end with one 90-minute episode instead of a full third season. According to Deadline, Gaiman offered to step back from the show’s finale. A Disney film adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 young adult novel The Graveyard Book, which was in development, was also put on hold. Neither streaming service confirmed that these decisions were taken because of the allegations.

Three screen adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s works have been cancelled or had their production paused amid reports accusing the author of Coraline and The Sandman of sexual misconduct.

Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives, based on characters created for DC Comics by Gaiman and Matt Wagner, has been cancelled after one season. Production of the third and final season of Amazon drama Good Omens, based on the 1990 novel by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, has been paused, according to US website Deadline.

Meanwhile, development of a Disney film adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 young adult novel The Graveyard Book has been put on hold. None of the streaming services has confirmed that these decisions were taken because of the allegations, but Gaiman apparently offered to step back from his involvement in Good Omens, according to Deadline.

Gaiman’s representatives declined to comment on the decisions taken by the streaming services.

In July, an investigation by Tortoise media reported allegations by two women of sexual misconduct against Gaiman, including sexual abuse and coercive behaviour. Gaiman has strongly denied any unlawful conduct. One woman, whose first name is Scarlett, alleged that Gaiman performed sexual acts on her without her consent when she was working as a nanny for the author’s family in New Zealand. Gaiman said they only engaged in consensual acts. A second woman, identified only by the initial K, alleged that Gaiman penetrated her without consent; Gaiman denied any unlawful behaviour.

Further allegations have been made since Tortoise’s original report, including by Caroline Wallner, who alleged that Gaiman pressured her to have sex with him in return for letting her live at his property in upstate New York, and made her sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a $275,000 payment. Gaiman has said that the relationship had been entirely consensual.