Recording artist Moby is on the receiving end of some major Twitter heat following a very weird and creepy Instagram post regarding an alleged relationship with Natalie Portman. Moby had written of a relationship with the actress in his memoir, Then It Fell Apart. In the book, Moby describes a brief 1999 romance between himself (33) and the "20" year old Harvard student. On May 21st, two weeks after the memoir's release, Portman denied the claims in an interview with Harper's Bazaar. Her account is far more damning:
"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.
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."
Yesterday, Moby opted topost a bizarre and public "call out" of Natalie following the interview. The text, accompanying a shirtless photo with the young actress, reads as very defensive.
"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
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"
Many people on Twitter and Instagram felt this was an inappropriate response, and began roasting the star for his creepiness "calling himself out." Other Twitter users have opted to parody his post, sharing photos with celebrities (or photoshops with celebrities) with similar claims of romantic relationships. Leave it to Twitter to use humor to address a pretty appalling issue. Natalie Portman has yet to respond to Moby's social media antics, but hopefully she's enjoying the internet coming to her defense.
