Natalie Portman has denied a claim by Moby that they dated and described his behaviour 20 years ago as “inappropriate”.
Moby made the claim in his new book, When it Fell Apart – the follow-up to his 2016 memoir Porcelain – in which he alleges to have dated the Hollywood actor, 37, after she “flirted” with him in his dressing room at one of his shows.
In the book, Moby writes: “I was a bald binge drinker and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star. But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me. I was 33 and she was 20 but this was her world.”
He then claimed that he “tried to be Natalie’s boyfriend” for a few weeks but it “hadn’t worked out”.
“I thought that I was going to have to tell her that my panic was too egregious for me to be in a real relationship, but one night on the phone she informed me that she’d met somebody else. I was relieved that I’d never have to tell her how damaged I was.”
Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, Portman acknowledged meeting Moby backstage after going to one of his concerts as a fan, but denied ever being romantically involved with him. She also said she was still a teenager when they met, rather than 20 as Moby claimed in the book.
“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. There was no fact checking from him or his publisher – it almost feels deliberate."
She added that she found it “disturbing” that he would “use this story to sell his book”.
“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated,” she said. “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.”
In When it Fell Apart, Moby also claims to have dated a pre-fame Lana Del Rey in 2006, when she would have been 20 and he was 40.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Moby and Lana Del Rey for comment.
