Natalie Portman Criticizes Moby over "Creepy" Dating Claims

Moby also wrote about how he "tried dating" Lana Del Rey

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished May 22, 2019

Moby's new memoir Then It Fell Apart has already gifted us a wild anecdote about knob-touching Donald Trump, but Natalie Portman has now taken issue with how the musician presented their relationship in the book.

In the memoir, Moby claims that he and Portman dated after meeting backstage in Texas when he was 33 and she was 20. He recalls going to see her at Harvard University, where "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."

Moby wrote of the relationship, "For a few weeks I had tried to be Natalie's boyfriend, but it hadn't worked out," then recalling how she had called him to tell him she had met someone else.

Portman has now disputed Moby's account in conversation with Harper's Bazaar

"I was surprised to hear that he characterized 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," she said. "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."

Portman added, "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."

Recalling of her initial introduction to Moby, Portman said, "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 realized that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate."

Then It Fell Apart also finds Moby reflecting on a date with a pre-fame Lana Del Rey, then known as Lizzy Grant. In the book, Moby recalls a date at his New York apartment during which Del Rey politely shut him down.

Of their relationship, Moby writes:

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I like you. But I hear you do this with a lot of people."

I wanted to lie, to tell her that I didn't, that I was chaste, sane, and ethical. But I said nothing.

"I'd like to see you again," she said.

"Me too."

I walked her downstairs to the twenty-ninth floor and kissed her good night at the bank of the elevators.

This wasn't how I imagined the night ending. I'd assumed that we would end up christening my new apartment with vodka and sex. But to my surprise, this was almost nicer.


Then It Fell Apart is out now through Faber & Faber.

Latest Coverage