Neil Gaiman: A Hacker Did This to Me

Really, I was hacked. That's all it is. So said Neil Gaiman after his Goodreads account showed he was reading the book Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder while his marriage fell into disarray, Mashable reports. His marital woes became public recently when wife Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls alluded to them on Patreon, saying Gaiman had "left New Zealand" amid some turmoil, per AV Club:

• "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. ... It appears that I was was on tour for a year talking about the extreme dark and light for a reason. I was in training for this week ... it seems that my life was not rehearsal for my show ... the show was a rehearsal for my life."

The American Gods author then tweeted (and apparently untweeted) that "I see @amandapalmer has told people that we (like much of the world) are going through rocky times right now. It is true, we are." And that's when the book Splitting by Bill Eddy popped up on his Goodreads account. One Twitter user responded with awe, writing that "I am simply! blown away. A breathtaking, innovative, perfect escalation of the online conflict," but Gaiman says it ain't so: "Someone with a dark sense of humour just hacked this account," he wrote Saturday on Goodreads. "(I suppose that's what I get for leaving it here and not doing anything for a long time.)"