Moby Is Digging His Heels In Again Over The Deeply Weird Natalie Portman Saga

The saga of Moby and his continual insistence that he did in fact date Natalie Portman briefly in 1999 actually continues to be the week’s most utterly baffling story, mostly because Moby’s response to Portman insisting they never dated and it was all a bit weird and creepy has been to repeatedly double, triple, quadruple down and insist it was all chill and good.

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If you’ve missed it so far, here’s a quick recap: Moby recently released his second memoir Then It Fell Apart. By all accounts it is a rambling, bafflingly self-aggrandising account of Moby’s rise to fame during the period around Play being released, as well as a loving recollection of all the famous people he is friends with and the countless women he’s had sex with.

Among the many stories – one of which is a yarn about how Andy Dick once shit on Moby’s “end-of-tour” vegan cake; a mighty self-own to include in your own book – is the one about how, for a brief period in 1999, Moby claims he was romantically involved with Natalie Portman.

Among the claims, which read less like the events of an actual relationship and more like the horny selective memories of a deeply weird nerd, Moby tells the story of how they “held hands and wandered around Harvard, kissing under the centuries-old oak trees,” and then “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.” In one of many celebrity name drops in the book, Moby recalled also recalled a previous event where Stephen Tyler reportedly asked “Are you with Natalie Portman?” to which Moby replied “I guess so.”

After the release of the book, Portman issued a stinging rebuke denying they ever “dated,” and insisting instead that Moby was a creepy older dude trying to push something very unwanted on a much, much younger woman.

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. He said I was 20; I definitely wasn’t. I was a teenager. I had just turned 18.

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

Since those remarks, Moby has been on a tear on social media, repeatedly insisting Portman is, in fact, wrong about all of this and that there is no possible way a 33-year-old rock star hitting on an 18-year-old woman could’ve possibly been construed as being creepy.

After doubling down on Instagram yesterday, Moby has again gone on the front foot on social media in a post that serves as a timely cautionary tale on the quiet benefits of Logging Off™.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxz_w3th-pU/

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.

Following that piece of flailing weirdness, Moby then posted a shot of nature and peace’d out of social media for a while with a searing sign off.

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. 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.

Moby, my dude. Smash that motherfuckin’ log off button. For the love of god, man.

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