'The Sandman' writer Neil Gaiman has been accused of sexually assaulting five women. Here's a timeline of the allegations.

Writer Julia Hobsbawm appeared in the fifth episode of the Tortoise podcast and shared allegations related to an encounter with Gaiman in 1986 when she was 22.

She claimed that after a party, he went back to Hobsbawm's flat in London and assaulted her.

"One minute it seemed like he was telling me about Mary and his child, and the next minute he just sort of jumped on me," she said, referring to his ex-wife.

"I remember he made an aggressive, unwanted pass at me out of the blue that I've never experienced before or since," Hobsbawm added.

The podcast also included Gaiman's response to the 1986 allegation: "He attempted a kiss, upon realizing he had misread the situation and that Julia was not receptive, he stopped the attempt. His position is it was no more than a young man misreading a situation."

The fourth episode of the podcast explains that a woman, who identified herself as K because she wished to remain anonymous, met Gaiman at a Florida book signing in 2003 when she was 18, and they started their relationship two years later.

K told Tortoise Media that she had "rough and painful sex" with Gaiman that "she neither wanted nor enjoyed."

She also claimed Gaiman had sex with her while she had an infection "despite her asking him not to."

On July 28, a woman using the alias "Claire" claimed on the "Am I Broken: Survivor Stories" that she met Gaiman in 2012 at a book signing when she was 22. They started a relationship that lasted ten months.

Claire claimed that she went to an afterparty with Gaiman, and he tried to touch her underneath her dress during a car ride back to her hotel. She also alleged that he kissed her in the hotel hallway. She entertained the "gross" kiss "because it was Neil Gaiman," she said.

Claire said Gaiman apologized to her in a call sometime after the incident.

"His apology felt so genuine. He told me he had no idea, and he wished I had told him sooner. He said he was glad that I told him so he could learn," she said.

According to Claire, the author said that she kissed him first, but she refuted his claim.

"I said, 'No, that's actually not true. You kissed me first, ten minutes after meeting me.' And then he brought his autism diagnosis into it as something of an explanation for why he wasn't able to read my body language," she said.

The fifth episode of the Tortoise podcast focused on Caroline Wallner, a divorced mother of three, who lived in a house on Gaiman's property in Woodstock, New York, from 2014 to 2021.

Wallner's ex-husband lived in the house and worked for Gaiman from 2014 to 2017 but left following their divorce.

She said that she was dependent on Gaiman following her divorce because she lived with him, and claimed that he used the situation to manipulate her.

"There were little hints of, 'we're going to need the house.' And I remember saying, let's talk about it. Let's figure it out," she recalled. "That's when he would just come to my studio and make me give him a blowjob. And he can say it was consensual. But why would I do that? It was because I was scared of losing my place."

She went on to claim: "He used to say to me 'Call me your master. Tell me you want it. Tell me you want it.' He would choke me sometimes."

Wallner claimed that Gaiman sent her explicit photos, and asked for photos of her in return. When she stopped replying to him, his property manager told her that she and her children would have to leave the house by December 2021.

The second and third episodes of the podcast are about Scarlett, a 23-year-old nanny, who claims that she started a sexual relationship with Gaiman at his New Zealand home in February 2022, only a few hours after they first met.

On that day, Scarlett alleged that Gaiman assaulted her in a bath but they went on to have a consensual relationship.

Scarlett told Tortoise Media that "Gaiman engaged in rough and degrading penetrative sexual acts with her."

She also described how "the pain was celestial" during one incident, but he refused to stop when she asked.

"He laughed and said I needed to be punished and used his belt on me," Scarlett claimed.

Tortoise Media relayed a statement from Gaiman, which said: "he denies any unlawful behavior with K and is disturbed by her allegations."

It continued: "He believes K's allegations are motivated by her regret over their relationship and that Scarlett was suffering from a condition associated with false memories at the time of her relationship with him, a claim which is not supported by her medical records and medical history."

Gaiman told Tortoise Media that during the alleged 2022 incident involving Scarlett "they only 'cuddled' and 'made out' in the bath and that he had established consent for this."

"His position is that, over the three-week sexual relationship that followed, they only ever engaged in consensual digital penetration."

Representatives for Neil Gaiman did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

On September 4, IndieWire reported citing sources at Disney, that the studio had halted work on its adaptation of "The Graveyard Book," a young adult novel about a boy raised by ghosts after his parents are murdered.

The project had recently set up production offices, although no actors were attached to it.

The outlet reported that Disney has not completely shelved the movie, but it is on pause for a number of reasons, including the allegations against Gaiman.

Gaiman has not been directly involved with the adaptation, unlike Netflix's "The Sandman" and Amazon's "Good Omens." In December 2022, he told fans on Tumblr: "You know everything I know. And no, no control or say. Fingers crossed that if they make it, it's good."

Representatives for Disney and Gaiman did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.