Moby cancels public appearances days after apologizing to Natalie Portman: 'All of this has been my own fault'
Moby’s memoir Then It Fell Apart made headlines when it was released earlier this month, mostly because of his story about actress Natalie Portman.
After Portman refuted his story that the two once dated, Moby — whose real name is Richard Melville Hall — insisted it was true by posting a now-deleted photo on Instagram but then apologized to the Jackie star for his words. Now he’s canceled “all upcoming public appearances for the foreseeable future” and announced on social media that he’s taking a break.
The abrupt change of schedule follows days of media coverage of the back and forth between the Closer actress and the musician. He noted the “media fixation” on him in recent weeks and attempted to redirect attention to charitable organizations. In a second post, he apologized for not having shown his book to the people he wrote about before publication.
“I’m going to go away for awhile,” Moby wrote. “But before I do I want to apologize again, and to say clearly that all of this has been my own fault. I am the one who released the book without showing it to the people I wrote about. I’m the one who posted defensively and arrogantly. I’m the one who behaved inconsiderately and disrespectfully, both in 2019 and in 1999. There is obviously no one else to blame but me. Thank you, and I’m sorry.”
In his new book, Moby wrote that he and Portman dated when she was 20 and he was 36, after meeting backstage at one of his shows. Moby remembered being relieved when Portman met someone else, because it meant he wouldn’t have to tell her how “damaged” he was at that point in his life.
Portman refuted the story and called out publisher Faber & Faber for failing to check the story out with her before going to press in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar U.K. In fact, Portman said, she was a fan of Moby when she was 18, just after she graduated high school, and he’d asked her to be friends during that first meeting.
“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,” Portman said.
She recalled her meetings with him very differently.
“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,” Portman said.
Finally, Portman criticized the publishing company behind the book for not checking the story out with her before publication.
“It almost feels deliberate. That he used this story to sell his book was very disturbing to me,” she said. “It wasn’t the case. There are many factual errors and inventions.”
Moby at first responded to Portman’s comments by sharing a snapshot of himself shirtless with Portman (she was wearing a shirt) during the time in question, but he later deleted it.
He issued an apology to Portman and others he wrote about in his book over the weekend.
“I also fully recognize that it was truly inconsiderate of me to not let her know about her inclusion in the book beforehand, and equally inconsiderate for me to not fully respect her reaction,” the “South Side” musician wrote in part. “I have a lot of admiration for Natalie, for her intelligence, creativity, and animal rights activism, and I hate that I might have caused her and her family distress.”
Another famous person who Moby wrote about in his book: President Trump. He recalled having “knob-touched” the future POTUS at a 2001 party in New York City.
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