Natalie Portman Denies Dating Moby Amid ‘Creepy’ Claims They Were in a Relationship When She Was in Her Teens
Natalie Portman has denied ever dating Moby after the singer claimed the two shared a brief fling in the late '90s in his new memoir, Then It Fell Apart.
During a new interview with Harper's Bazaar UK, the actress disputed his "creepy" claims, adding that whatever he said about their alleged romance isn't true. In his book, Moby says Portman came backstage to meet him after a show and started flirting with him. However, she remembers things differently.
“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 told the magazine.
“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated,” Portman continued. “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.”
She goes on to say that she was 18—not 20 years old like Moby claims—and that she wasn't looking to start a relationship with him. Portman also believes he intentionally lied about their romance to "sell his book" and says she would have appreciated if he or his publishers would have fact-checked the story with her first.
Moby has since responded to Portman’s interview in a lengthy message on Instagram.
"I recently read a gossip piece wherein Natalie Portman said that we’d never dated. This confused me, as we did, in fact, date. And after briefly dating in 1999 we remained friends for years," he wrote alongside a photo of the pair.
"I can’t figure out why she would actively misrepresent the truth about our (albeit brief) involvement," he continued. "I completely respect 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."
Check out Moby's full Instagram post, below: