Moby’s autobiography Then It Fell Apart has been making headlines since it was first released a few weeks ago. The story of “sex, drugs and self-loathing”, as one review put it, contains explosive tell-all claim after explosive tell-all claim, from his childhood trauma to adult drug use and tales of dating Christina Ricci, Lana del Rey and Natalie Portman.

Moby describes meeting the actor backstage at one of his concerts when he was 37 and she was 20. “I was a bald binge drinker and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star,” Moby writes. 

“But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me. I was 33 and she was 20 but this was her world.” For a few weeks, he adds, he “tried to be Natalie’s boyfriend” but it didn’t work out. Portman called him one night, he writes, to tell him that she had met someone else and that was that.

Only, according to Portman that wasn’t that at all. In a new interview with Harper’s BAZAAR, the actor has denied claims that she ever dated the singer, and said that it was “disturbing” that he had decided to “use this story to sell his book”. 

The pair did meet at a concert, but Portman says she wasn’t 20 but was, in fact, 18. They also didn’t date, but rather hung out a few times before Portman realised that this behaviour was “creepy”.

“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.

She added: “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.”

“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.”

Moby has responded to Portman’s comments with an Instagram post featuring the shirtless singer with his arm around Portman, who is displaying what can only be described as a rictus grin. 

The singer went on to add that he had “lots of corroborating photo evidence, etc” of the relationship. He did, however, own that he respected “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.” 

But many fans have commented on Moby’s post questioning his motives. “This is so cringey,” one person wrote. “Why would you even post this trying to convince people you dated her.” 

Another added: “Maybe the teenager you thought you were dating didn’t feel the same about you. This is creepy and weird and embarrassing for you.”

“Maybe, if you really respected her, you would have spoken with Natalie about writing of your relationship with her in your book, and avoided all this,” wrote another. “She seems like an EXTREMELY private person and I’m sure you were well aware of this. Also, as others have mentioned, could it be you just thought you were dating and actually she was just thinking she was your friend?”

Portman isn’t the only young star that Moby claims to have dated in his autobiography. He also claims to have had a relationship with Lana Del Rey when she was 20 and he was 40. 

In the same interview, Portman added that organisations like Time’s Up and the #MeToo movement are a force for good.

“Time’s Up circumvented the legal system which people have complained about, but the legal system has not been serving women for so long and there was such frustration with it. It gave women the ability to say, ‘We’re essentially being silence and shamed and now we’re coming forward.’ There’s a real collective force when so many women come together. It’s a shame that it requires so many of us to be heard, but the force of it has the same force of a legal statement being implemented.” 

She continued: “Whatever happens in court with Harvey Weinstein, whatever happens because of these laws that don’t protect us or the truth of survivors the spoken truth and courage of women coming forward has the ability to change hearts and minds about what a person is capable of and how to protect others from him, and stop him from being able to flourish.” 

Images: Getty