Natalie Portman denies Moby's claims they dated in 1999 and calls him "creepy"

In his new 2019 memoir "Then It Fell Apart," the musician Moby claimed to have dated actress Natalie Portman when she was 20 and he was 33 years old. She refuted his claims this week, explaining she remembers him "as a much older man being creepy with me."

The now 53-year-old "Porcelain" singer recounted what he claimed was their first meeting after his 1999 show in Austin, Texas."I was a bald binge drinker who lived in an apartment that smelled like mildew and old bricks, and Natalie Portman was a beautiful movie star," he wrote in an excerpt posted by Entertainment Weekly in April. "But here she was in my dressing room, flirting with me."

He continued that they began dating and he, "tried to be her boyfriend," but she ended their relationship when she met someone else, according to "Harpers Bazaar." Portman, now 37 years old, told the outlet she remembers their relationship differently in an interview published Tuesday.

"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," Portman told "Harpers Bazaar." She said she was just just 18, refutig Moby's claims she was 20 when they first met. Portman was born in 1981, so if they did meet in 1999 as he claimed, she would have been 18. 

"There was no fact checking from him or his publisher – it almost feels deliberate," the Oscar winner continued. "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."

The "Black Swan" star provided a different account of the night, saying she was a fan and went to his show after graduating high school. When she met the performer, Portman claimed he said, "let's be friends." However, she said that after hanging out "a handful of times," until she "realized that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate."

Moby countered her claims with an Instagram post Tuesday, alongside a old photo of the pair together. "I recently read a gossip piece wherein Natalie Portman said that we'd never dated," the musician wrote. "This confused me, as we did, in fact, date." He added that after "briefly dating" in 1999, they remained friends for years and that he doesn't understand why she would "actively misrepresent the truth."

He added at the end of the caption that he understands why she would "regret" dating him. "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."

The musician has claimed to have dated Portman before. In a 2008 interview for "Spin," he said he had a "very brief affair" with the star, but their alleged relationship made him the target of "nerd wrath." "You can't date Luke Skywalker's mom and not have them hate your guts," he said, according to the outlet.

In the memoir, the performer also claims to have dated a musician just breaking onto the scene, who later became known as Lana Del Rey, as well as actress Christina Ricci, among others, according to The Washington Post.

Representatives for Portman and Moby have not responded to request for comment.