Natalie Portman is not a fan of Canadian DJ Moby’s claims that the two were romantically linked, according to a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar. This interview was made in response to the prominent electronic music producer and DJ’s claims in his memoir, where he stated that the actress asked him out after a show in 2001.
Moby originally claimed: “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.” These lines are refuted by Portman, who describes the incident in question as disturbing, and completely one sided on his end.
“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated,” she stated in the interview. “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.”
Although Moby has been making these claims since at least 2008, they gained more prominence since the release of his memoir Then It Fell Apart. In this book, Moby describes numerous affair and flings that he’s had in his over 25 years as a prominent DJ in the music industry, and prominently named Portman as one of the people he dated.
These claims are a source of frustration for the actress, who has become a prominent figure in the Time’s Up movement, which helped inspire the #MeToo movement. She recalls their time together as inappropriate, seeing Moby as an older man who tried to court a much younger Portman.
“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 further elaborated. “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. 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.”
Moby, however, denies the claims Portman made and states that he did in fact date Portman. “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,” the DJ responded according to the BBC.
“If I write about dating Natalie Portman, anyone can Google and find pictures of us together, so it’s not libellous,” Moby further explained. It is unknown if Portman or her attorneys will ever pursue a libel charge in response to the memoirs (which was published back in 2016).
This isn’t the first time the DJ has landed in controversy over something he said. In 2018, he made claims that he has insider CIA info regarding Trump’s alleged ties and susceptibility over Russian blackmail.
Photo Credit: Pamela Lin
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