Moby has cancelled all public appearances ‘for the foreseeable future’ amid the controversy over his Natalie Portman comments.
The 53-year-old has decided he will no longer promote his new book, When It Fell Apart, in which he claimed to have dated the Hollywood actress when he was 37 and she was 20.
A statement on the musician’s website said: ‘Moby is canceling all upcoming public appearances for the foreseeable future.
‘We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. All tickets will be refunded at the point of purchase, and Moby is happy to provide signed bookplates to everyone who bought tickets to these events.’
Though he stood by claims he did ‘date’ Natalie, the artist left a final post on his Instagram on Wednesday night blaming the controversy on himself for not showing the extract to her before it was published.
‘I’m going to go away for awhile,’ he wrote. ‘But before I do I want to apologise 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. Moby.’
It’s been a week since Moby was left red-faced when Natalie, 37, publicly denied that they were ever ‘dating’ and described his flirtation as ‘creepy’ when they met 20 years ago.
She said: ‘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.’
Natalie recalls hanging out with Moby a handful of times while he was on tour but realised he was interested ‘in a way that felt inappropriate’.
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.
He then claimed that he ‘tried to be Natalie’s boyfriend’ for a few weeks but it ‘hadn’t worked out’.
The Porcelain singer continued: ‘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.’
And Moby stood by his claims when Natalie disputed his version of events last week.
He said: ‘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.
‘I like Natalie, and I respect her intelligence and activism. But, to be honest, I can’t figure out why she would actively misrepresent the truth about our (albeit brief) involvement.
‘The story as laid out in my book Then It Fell Apart is accurate, with lots of corroborating photo evidence, etc. Thanks, Moby.’
He added: ‘Ps 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.’
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