Moby: 'I'm Going to Go Away for a While'

After being called "creepy" over his claim to have once dated Natalie Portman, Moby has decided to stay out of the public eye for a while. The musician announced Wednesday that he is calling off the remainder of his book tour for memoir Then It Fell Apart, Page Six reports. Moby is "canceling all public appearances for the foreseeable future," according to his website. The website says tickets will be refunded for the four scheduled appearances in the UK and Ireland. Portman, who met Moby when she was 18 and he was 33, disputed his account in the book of their brief friendship in 1999, saying her "recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school."

Moby, who initially responded to the controversy by posting pictures of himself with Portman, apologized to her this week, saying he should have "acted more responsibly and respectfully when Natalie and I first met almost 20 years ago." He apologized again in an Instagram post Wednesday, saying he is "going to go away for a while," the BBC reports. "But before I do I want to apologize again, and to say clearly that all of this has been my own fault," he wrote. "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." (More Moby stories.)