No, Neil Gaiman didn’t shade his wife—His Goodreads account was hacked

Earlier this month, we learned that fantasy author Neil Gaiman and Dresden Dolls singer Amanda Palmer had broken up after nearly a decade of marriage. And now, Gaiman has claimed that his Goodreads account was hacked after a rather bizarre post appeared on his feed.

Amanda Palmer let the world know of the couple’s breakup via her Patreon account. “Since people are getting confused and asking and my phone and inbox is blowing up with ‘where‘s Neil’? a few times a minute….I can only gather that he’s finally told the internet that he’s left New Zealand, and I thought I would come here with a short note,” she wrote. “Neil has left for the UK.”

The American Gods author soon responded on Twitter, confirming that he and Palmer had been having difficulties. It almost seems like he was a little blindsided by Palmer’s Patreon post.

“I see @amandapalmer has told people that we (like much of the world) are going through rocky times right now,” Gaiman wrote. “It is true, we are. It’s really hard, and I’d like to request privacy (as I’m not going to be talking about it publicly) and kindness, for us and for Ash.”

Since the breakup, there was some suspicious activity on Gaiman’s Goodreads account, which he uses to notify his fans of which books he’s currently reading. The other day, an update revealed that he was apparently reading Randi Kreger and Bill Eddy’s Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone With Borderline Or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

The tweet that uncovered this strange post has since gone viral on Twitter, gaining over 26,000 likes since it was went out on May 9.

Predictably, people read this as Gaiman shading his wife, although it seemed in bad taste for the author. And he soon confirmed that it wasn’t his doing. “Someone with a dark sense of humour just hacked this account,” he assured fans on his Goodreads. “(I suppose that’s what I get for leaving it here and not doing anything for a long time.)”

Let’s hope that the person who is responsible for this post is found. It’s obviously wrong to hack someone’s account in the first place, not to mention using a book about mental health as a way to mock someone. And of course, we’re wishing Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, and their son Ash all the best in this difficult period.

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