Moby at Rough Trade
photo by Toby Tenenbaum

Moby issues apology after insisting he & Natalie Portman dated

Following the release of his new memoir, Then It Fell Apart, Moby has spent much of the past week insisting that he and Natalie Portman dated, even after she denied it in an interview, where she said she remembered him as an “older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school.” Moby said he’d received “anonymous threats of violence”, but doubled down on his claims. Since then, though, he’s issued an apology on Instagram:

As some time has passed I’ve realized that many of the criticisms leveled at me regarding my inclusion of Natalie in Then It Fell Apart are very valid.
I also fully recognize that it was truly inconsiderate of me to not let her know about her inclusion in the book beforehand, and equally inconsiderate for me to not fully respect her reaction.
I have a lot of admiration for Natalie, for her intelligence, creativity, and animal rights activism, and I hate that I might have caused her and her family distress.
I tried to treat everyone I included in Then It Fell Apart with dignity and respect, but nonetheless it was truly inconsiderate for me to not let them know before the book was released.
So for that I apologize, to Natalie, as well as the other people I wrote about in Then It Fell Apart without telling them beforehand.
Also I accept that given the dynamic of our almost 14 year age difference I absolutely should’ve acted more responsibly and respectfully when Natalie and I first met almost 20 years ago.

Moby

His apology came after another Instagram message, which began, “I certainly haven’t enjoyed this last week, but it’s reminded me of a couple of things:”

1-our sense of self and well-being really shouldn’t come from the opinions of strangers.
personally I think I’d become too reliant on external validation, especially in the form of social media.
trust me, that has ended.. and:

2-my problems are tiny and insignificant, especially in a world where over 100 billion animals are killed by and for humans every year, and where we’re facing largely unprecedented environmental destruction and degradation.
for a long time my primary goal has been to be a better, and more effective, activist.
who knows, maybe the insanity of this last week will somehow help me to do that.
it certainly does seem that for me(or any of us) to obsess over social media when the world is truly falling apart is an un-ethical waste of time. -moby

p.s-a reminder; none of our concerns will matter if the climate keeps rising, the rainforest keeps disappearing, and species continue to go extinct. social media won’t sustain us in a world that doesn’t support human life.

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