Cast your mind back to 2019, a simpler time. A time that saw Moby released his memoir, Then It Fell Apart, offering up a series of succulently embarrassing dating featuring the likes of Natalie Portman and Lana Del Rey.
One chapter of the book included a story of how he supposedly dated Natalie Portman, in which he so self-depreciatingly (but perhaps accurately) described himself as a “bald binge drinker” who was stunned to see “a beautiful movie star” like Portman “flirting” with him.
“I took a taxi to Cambridge to meet Natalie,” he wrote in the memoir. “We held hands and wandered around Harvard, kissing under the centuries-old oak trees.”
“At midnight she brought me to her dorm room and we lay down next to each other on her small bed. After she fell asleep I carefully extracted myself from her arms and took a taxi back to my hotel.”
Natalie Portman responded to the segment in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Natalie Portman denying claims that they ever dated.
“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 explained.
“He said I was 20; I definitely wasn’t. I was a teenager. I had just turned 18. There was no fact checking from him or his publisher – it almost feels deliberate,” she added. “That he used this story to sell his book was very disturbing to me. It wasn’t the case.”
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“There are many factual errors and inventions. I would have liked him or his publisher to reach out to fact check.”
In a new interview with The Guardian, Moby was asked about the faux pas. “You know, you’re asking me to open up such a can of worms… There’s no good way to answer: one option is terrible, the other is really terrible,” he said.
The Play musician went on to detail the remorse he feels about ever letting that story see the light of day.
“So if we were playing chess right now, this is the part where I’d pick up my phone and pretend I’ve got an emergency call,” he continued.
“If you talk to my managers or people I work with, I only have one iron-clad rule, which is: don’t send me press links or reviews because I don’t read any of it.
“When the lunacy was happening a couple of years ago, I took refuge in my ignorance. Obviously it became hard to ignore, especially when I had the tabloids camped outside my door. But I guess I realised that if everyone in the world hates me I can still wake up in my same comfortable bed every morning and go hiking.”
When asked directly whether he regretted the way he behaved around Portman, Moby admitted: “A part of me wishes I could spend the next two hours deconstructing the whole thing. But there’s levels of complexity and nuance that I really can’t go into.”
He concluded: “There is a part of me in hindsight that wishes I hadn’t written the book. But then, sales figures indicate that not that many people actually read it.”
Ah well, at least he’s handled it with a sense of humility.
