By now we’ve probably all heard about Moby’s new memoir, Then It All Fell Apart which is a terrifyingly apt title for the incidents that have followed its release.
Basically, Moby published an autobiography that has detailed his dating life… with stories coming out so far of his encounters with a young, pre-fame Lana Del Rey as well as a “20 year-old” Natalie Portman — in 1999.
“I was a bald binge drinker and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star,” he writes. “But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me. I was 33 and she was 20 but this was her world.”
According to The Guardian, Moby recounts how they “kissed under the centuries-old oak trees” and slept beside each other in her Harvard dorm room. “For a few weeks I had tried to be Natalie’s boyfriend, but it hadn’t worked out,” he writes.
Natalie Portman, however, disputes this account. “I was surprised to hear that he characterised the very short time that I knew him as dating because my recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school,” Portman told Harper’s Bazaar.
She also pointed out that in 1999 she was 17 and 18… not 20 — which somewhat changes the narrative for then-33-year-old, Moby.
Portman recalls that she was a fan of Moby and went to one of his shows after she’d just graduated. “When we met after the show, he said, ‘let’s be friends’. He was on tour and I was working, shooting a film, so we only hung out a handful of times before I realised that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate.”
“That he used this story to sell his book was very disturbing to me. It wasn’t the case. There are many factual errors and inventions. I would have liked him or his publisher to reach out to fact-check.”
Now, Moby has doubled down — or rather dug his own social grave — insisting that he did indeed date Natalie Portman. Taking to Instagram, Moby posted an old photo of the pair together. The caption reads, “I recently read a gossip piece wherein Natalie Portman said that we’d never dated. This confused me, as we did, in fact, date.
“And after briefly dating in 1999 we remained friends for years. I like Natalie, and I respect her intelligence and activism. But, to be honest, I can’t figure out why she would actively misrepresent the truth about our (albeit brief) involvement.
“The story as laid out in my book Then It Fell Apart is accurate, with lots of corroborating photo evidence, etc. Thanks, Moby”
He somehow makes it worse at the end by throwing in, “Ps I completely respect Natalie’s possible regret in dating me (to be fair, I would probably regret dating me, too), but it doesn’t alter the actual facts of our brief romantic history.”
Now, he’s uploaded more. This time a four-slider Insta post starts with a title image that reads: “Sincerely, what should I do when people believe accusations and not evidence?”. The post then proceeds with another three images of Moby with Natalie Partman.
In another long-form caption he said, “… She’s denying that we ever dated, even though in the past she’s publicly discussed our involvement, and there’s ample photographic evidence that we briefly dated and then were friends (some pictures included in this post). It hurts to be lied about, especially as I’ve always respected her, and I thought we were friends.”
Now however, it looks like Moby’s had time to reflect, seemingly after some warranted backlash for the bizarre posts. An hour after supplying his “evidence” he posted again, this time, simply a picture of trees.
“You know what’s nice? That nature doesn’t care. Also, I can choose frustration and bitterness, or I can remember that as an activist I’m here to help, not to be helped. To be of service, not to be served. Might sound like hippie nonsense, but it’s what I believe,” he captioned.
“And that adversity is no excuse for abandoning integrity and principles. So, attack me, slander me, lie about me, in the meantime I’ll be trying to save animals and help stop humans from destroying the only home we have. Bye.”
Yep.
