Posted in: Comic Pros, Comics | Tagged: amanda palmer, coronavirus, neil gaiman

Scottish Police Scold Neil Gaiman Over Public Marital Spat

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's embarrassing public spat has gotten the Scottish police involved. Apparently, the police believe Gaiman violated international travel guidelines by flying home to Skye, Scotland from New Zealand, which kicked off the public back-and-forth. Gaiman described his journey on his blog last Thursday, writing:

I was in New Zealand with them until two weeks ago, when New Zealand went from the Level 4 lockdown it had been on for the previous 5 weeks down to Level 3. I flew, masked and gloved, from empty Auckland airport to LAX, an empty international terminal with only one check in counter open — the one for the BA flight from LAX to London. Both flights were surreal, especially the flight to London. Empty airports, mostly empty planes. It reminded me of flying a week after 9/11: everything's changed.

I landed in London about ten in the morning, got a masked car service to a friend's house. He had a spare car (bought many years ago as a birthday present for his daughter, but she had never learned to drive), with some groceries for me in a box in the back, waiting in the drive, with the key in the lock. I drove north, on empty motorways and then on empty roads, and got in about midnight, and I've been here ever since.

However, Scottish police were apparently unimpressed with Gaiman's precautions, according to The Independent, with Inspector Linda Allen saying:

Officers have visited Neil Gaiman and spoken to him about his actions. He has been given suitable advice about essential travel and reminded about the current guidelines in Scotland.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackwood took things a step further, issuing the following statement:

Can I just remind anyone else thinking of coming to the Highlands this is against the regulations.

To come from the other end of the planet is gobsmacking. We will welcome all to the Highlands when it is safe to do so. For now, stay away.

Do the police not know that Gaiman and Palmer are famous people or something? Don't people who are famous deserve more special treatment than this? Who exactly does the world revolve around here if not Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer?! Palmer and Gaiman teased a public breakup at the beginning of May when Palmer wrote on Patreon:

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.

neil has left for the U.K.

‪i'm still in lockdown here in new zealand with 4-yr-old ash for the foreseeable future. ‬

all i can say is that i'm heartbroken, i really am profoundly struggling and i need to call my community to me like never before.‬ i need you.

i am so far from home and so alone right now. i do not know what is going to happen.

‪so you all know: this did not happen because of COVID or lockdown, though the timing is comically bad; other things came to light after we got here to new zealand.

in fairness to all, and to keep little ash (who will not always be little) protected, the details aren't for the public.

Yeah, too late for that, Amanda. In the couple's grand tradition of letting fans know far more than anyone could reasonably want to about their personal lives, Gaiman and Palmer released a joint statement on their relationship on Friday which reads:

Dear Everybody.

This has been a hard few weeks for us. We are not getting divorced. It's not that exciting.

We love each other very deeply. As sometimes happens during the course of a long marriage, we have hurt each other. We have lived our lives individually, and then as a couple, very publicly (and right now, too publicly).

We have been trying to figure out how best to love each other for twelve years. It is fair to say that this relationship has been the hardest, but also the most rewarding, collaboration of our lives.

Living in lockdown is hard. Working on a marriage, as everyone married knows, is also hard. And we are very aware there are thousands, probably millions of people who have been dealing with their own versions of problems like ours over the last few months – and many face situations that are far worse.

We will sort out our marriage in private, which is where things like this are best sorted. We're working together to try and do this better. We care about each other so much, and we have a small boy we love and delight in, and those are reasons enough to work together to fix things.

So that's what's going on. It's not as much fun or as interesting as the newsfeed headlines made it seem.

For anyone who felt the urge to choose sides on this, trust us, there really aren't any sides to be taken: we are on our side, and we're on Ash's side, and we hope you are too.

None of us know what the future is going to look and feel like, right now, and that's scary. We need to be able to have each other's backs. So please, if you can, have our backs, and we will do our best to have yours.

And to the vast majority of people out there who have been kind and sane and supportive to both of us, and to each other, thank you, we love you and appreciate it, and you, so very much.

Peace, and definitely love,

Neil and Amanda

Maybe the whole thing was "performance art?" Personally, we'll feel a lot more peaceful, and definitely more loving, once we stop having to hear about Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer's relationship in the media. We would definitely consider flying 11,000 miles in violation of international travel guidelines during a pandemic to avoid any more of that.

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