Music

We Regret To Inform You That Moby Is Still Being A Gigantic Fucking Creep

Moby...just stop.

by Jules LeFevre  24 May 2019
Moby Natalie Portman

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There are quite a few disturbing moments in Moby’s new memoir, Then It Fell Apart, but perhaps none more so than his curious alleged “relationship” with actress Natalie Portman — a claim which she disputes, and which he has since doubled down to defend.

In the memoir, Moby — real name Richard Melville Hall — describes meeting the 20-year old actress at Harvard University, where she was studying at the time. “For a few weeks I had tried to be Natalie’s boyfriend, but it hadn’t worked out,” he writes, before claiming she had called him to let him know she met someone else. He was 33 at the time.

Portman responded to Moby’s claims in an interview with Harpers Bazaar yesterday, labelling him a creep and calling out a number of inaccuracies with his version of events.

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“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 said. “He said I was 20; I definitely wasn’t. I was a teenager. I had just turned 18. That he used this story to sell his book was very disturbing to me.”

“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated. 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.

“There was no fact checking from him or his publisher…It almost feels deliberate.”

Moby, instead of doing the normal human thing and apologising — or you know, even just taking some time to think about his actions — then hit back at Portman on Instagram, accusing her of misrepresenting their history, and insisting he did date Portman.

“I recently read a gossip piece wherein Natalie Portman said that we’d never dated. This confused me, as we did, in fact, date,” he wrote. “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.

“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.”

Here’s a hot tip Moby: Repeatedly insisting that you had a relationship with a teenager when you were 33 is a little…wildly gross and inappropriate.

After copping significant backlash yesterday, he’s now defended himself again in another Instagram post, again insisting he had “consensual romantic” relationship with Portman in 1999. He also claims he’s received “threats of violence” from her fans.

“In my memoir Then It Fell Apart I respectfully and honestly describe the brief, innocent, and consensual romantic involvement I had with Natalie Portman in 1999,” he writes. “But 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.”

 

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In my memoir Then It Fell Apart I respectfully and honestly describe the brief, innocent, and consensual romantic involvement I had with Natalie Portman in 1999. But 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. But I’ve been receiving anonymous threats of violence from her fans, and it’s affecting my business and my health. So what should I do? What do you do when people believe lies and accusations and not actual photographs and evidence? I want to take the high road, but I honestly don’t know what to do. It’s one thing to be lied about, and entirely another when someone’s lies result in physical threats from complete strangers.

A post shared by moby xⓋx (@moby) on

Predictably, people aren’t impressed.

As always, Liz Phair hits the nail on the head.

Moby, just stop.