He is a bestselling British fantasy writer, she is an American singer and performance artist, and they have enjoyed a rock-star open marriage to match. But Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are now getting divorced after 11 years.
Their announcement brings to a close a union that the couple celebrated as an example of how to remain deeply committed with “slutty” compassion, before almost falling apart during the lockdown.
They have made the “difficult decision” to go separate ways but have vowed to remain in each other’s lives as co-parents to bring up “our wonderful son in a loving and compassionate environment”.
Gaiman, 61, the author of books such as
Good Omens, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett, and
Anansi Boys and comics including the
Sandman series, and Palmer, 46, half of the punk cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls, married in 2011, a year after confirming their engagement.
Palmer was Gaiman’s second wife after his marriage to Mary McGrath, with whom he had three children, Mike, Holly and Maddy. They grew estranged and divorced in 2008.
“Amanda,” he said, “is full of grand gestures. She throws surprise parties; she dresses up as living statues in public for a birthday surprise; she sprang a fake wedding ceremony on the streets of New Orleans for us . . . I got together with her because I couldn’t ever imagine being bored.”
He added: “Now that we’re fairly settled, there is nothing humdrum in our domestic set-up, for the simple reason that, with Amanda, nothing is ever hum or drum.”
Gaiman has written comics, novels and plays, and collaborated with Terry Pratchett
In 2019 Palmer told The Sunday Times how “the idea of only ever fooling around with one other person until the end of time has always been terrifying to me, and with Neil too, I think.
“You have to remember that he had just come out of a 20-year marriage, so he was still tasting absolute freedom when I came along.”
She added: “There are lots of varieties of open relationships . . . we’re not interested in having big, multiple relationships; we’re just slutty, but compassionately so.”
When the couple’s son, Anthony “Ash” Gaiman, was aged four, Palmer said: “I’ve requested that we shut down our open marriage for the time being to focus on family life.”
The following year, however, she posted a heartfelt blog entitled “Where’s Neil?”, after he left her and their son in New Zealand during lockdown to travel to the Isle of Skye.
“I’m heartbroken, I really am profoundly struggling and I need to call my community to me like never before,” she wrote."
“I am strapped for time and currently flailing and trying to keep the kid OK. It’s been six weeks since he saw a child his own age . . . I’ve never been in a weirder, harder struggle.”
A few days later, Gaiman posted from Skye: “I’m half a world away from Amanda and Ash, and missing both of them a lot . . . Amanda and I had found ourselves in a rough place immediately before I left. (My fault, I’m afraid, I’d hurt her feelings very badly and . . . we agreed that we needed to give each other some space.)” He was subsequently spoken to by Police Scotland over lockdown rules.
Nine months later the family were reunited. Palmer said Gaiman had spent the time applying for an exemption to return on compassionate grounds and waiting for a place in the hotel quarantine queue.
“When Ash saw him, he sort of couldn’t believe it,” she wrote. “Neil stood there smiling in the sand and Ash was speechless for a moment, then he turned around and buried his little head in my chest . . . then he bulleted into Neil’s chest and held on to him like a barnacle for about a solid minute. There were lots of happy tears.”
Friends and wellwishers posted their support for the couple on social media. James Moran, a writer for
Doctor Who, for which Gaiman has written episodes, said: “Very sorry to hear this, and hope you all find the space to get through it. Big cuddles to you all.”
