“Maybe I was a new god”: Moby and his many monstrous accusations
Moby has found himself in the news recently, as his comments about The Kinks classic ‘Lola’ have resulted in an ongoing feud between himself, the band, and music lovers around the world.
In an interview with The Guardian, Moby said that he was no longer able to listen to ‘Lola’ because he felt as though the song was transphobic, claiming that the song came up on one of his playlists, and he struggled to get through it as he felt as though the narrative behind the track was overtly ignorant.
“‘Lola’ by The Kinks came up on a Spotify playlist, and I thought the lyrics were gross and transphobic,” he said. “I like their early music, but I was really taken aback at how unevolved the lyrics are,” the lyric in particular that Moby was referring to was the line in the song that said Lola “walks like a woman but talks like a man”.
Dave Davies of The Kinks has since come out and said that, in this case, context is important as well as content. He advised Moby to be careful when calling the band out and floating accusations of transphobia, as Davies attests that he is the very opposite of such a thing, and felt as though the subject of ‘Lola’ was a good reflection of as much.
He confirmed that yes, the lyrics were inspired by a transgender woman who once spent the night dancing with their manager, Robert Wace. However, he confirmed said woman was a friend of the band, and they used to follow The Kinks around when they were on tour.
“I don’t wanna show the guy up, but Moby should be careful what he says,” advised Davies. “The Cockettes and their friends used to follow us around on tour. We appreciated them… Why is Moby being so rude about this simple song? We’re not transphobic. Why does he have to have a go at us?”
For many who have been following Moby’s career, these outlandish remarks won’t come as a surprise, as throughout his life, the electronic musician has never been afraid to share his thoughts and tell stories which some would find unsavoury. Whether it’s revealing personal details that are a little bit too personal, completely making something up, or hurling monstrous accusations at people, Moby has never been shy of the limelight.
Natalie Portman: a back and forth
Perhaps one of the most famous back-and-forths Moby had with someone else in the public eye came in the form of his ongoing feud with Natalie Portman0 when the musician released his book, Then It Fell Apart, he spoke about a brief period when he dated the actor, during which time he developed strong feelings for her but worried about getting into a relationship, and according to Moby, the two dated for a quick stint when she was 20 and he was 33.
In his book, Moby recalls going to parties with her in New York and visiting the actor at Harvard University- he tells stories of them “kissing under the centuries-old oak trees,” adding, “At midnight she brought me to her dorm room, and we lay down next to each other on her small bed… After she fell asleep, I carefully extracted myself from her arms and took a taxi back to my hotel.”
Moby was at his most poetic when talking about why their relationship didn’t work out, as he said, “Nothing triggered my panic attacks more than getting close to a woman I cared about.” This seems like one of those lost romantic tales, two lovers entwined, right person, wrong time, yadda yadda yadda, right? Wrong.
When the book was published, Portman came out and said she was disturbed by what she had read, as she confirmed there were a number of factual inaccuracies in his account of their friendship. Yes, friendship. You may have guessed that the first falsehood was the idea that the two of them ever actually dated to begin with.
“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,” she said in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “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.”
When he found out about Portman’s comments, Moby doubled down on his side of the story, but not without a cheeky “woe-is-me” thrown in for good measure. “I completely respect Natalie’s possible regret in dating me (to be fair, I would probably regret dating me, too),” he wrote in a social media post. “But it doesn’t alter the actual facts of our brief romantic history.”
Strange sex stories
What connects a mattress in El Dorado, pricing debates with strip clubs and David Bowie? You guessed it, Moby’s sex life.
There is no denying it, the man liked to get his end away, quite often taking advantage of his rock star lifestyle and using it to sleep with multiple women, the majority of whom he has spoken about at some point, either in an interview or in a book. There are too many to go into, but here are a few that stand out, as Moby said, “to keep myself from feeling creepy and ethically compromised, I told myself I was looking for love.”
As far as I’m aware, Moby and David Bowie never had any kind of sexual relationship, but that didn’t stop the electronic musician calling on the Starman for pillow talk. At a party after Glastonbury festival, Moby found himself having sex with an Irish woman called Becks, taking gazing intervals as he looked longingly both into her eyes and a mirror that he had strategically placed in the corner of the room.
“Usually Irish woman were reserved,” he said, before confirming that Becks was happy for him to rip a mirror off the wall so he could place it on the floor and watch the two of them get to know each other better. “We spent the next few hours having sex and looking into each other’s eyes,” he added. “And by the time we were done, it was late, and most of the people at the party had left.”
Once the two collapsed into a sweaty heap on the bed, it was time for pillow talk, and Moby, seemingly lost for anything of substance to say (thoughts trapped behind a thrusting reflection most likely) merely offered Becks, “Can I tell you something?… David Bowie’s my neighbour.”
As well as having sex, it seems that Moby was also a fan of spectacle, at least this is what one witness to his sexual miscreants claims, as they told the Daily Intelligencer column that they had seen Moby stay long after hours at a strip club. I suppose if you have the money and you’re not ready for the night to end, this kind of action makes sense; however, when it came to settling the bill, Moby allegedly had some serious issues.
“When the owners wanted to charge him a couple thousand dollars more for this indulgence than he thought was fair, he not only refused to pay a cent of it but also threatened to call the cops and report a fight outside of the club,” an unnamed witness said in the column. The musician allegedly parted ways by delivering a scathing line to a bouncer. “The sad part about this is that when we wake up tomorrow, I’ll still be me and you’ll still be you.”
A harsh line indeed, but waking may well have been out of the question, as Moby would likely struggle to get to sleep in the first place, given he didn’t have a mattress to lie down on, at least, he didn’t for a period in 2009. As Moby was selling his apartment in El Dorado, he wanted his final night to go out with a bang, literally, and so decided to let a group of people have sex in his bed before it was moved out.
“The bed, which got moved out the next day, got put to good use. Unfortunately, not by me, but by a lot of other people,” he said in an interview with Intelligencer. “Liquor and drugs will do that.”
Dealings with Donald
One of the first encounters that Moby had with Donald Trump was at a party in 2001. Prior to any Presidential aspirations, Moby described him as a “mid-level real-estate developer and tabloid-newspaper staple whose career had been resuscitated by a reality TV show.” He doesn’t mention talking to Trump, but he was dared by a woman called Clarice, a former Miss USA runner-up, to “knob-touch” the would-be President. Whether he went through with the request remains unconfirmed.
Who would have thought, then, that years down the line, this reality TV star would become the President of the United States and ask Moby to play at his inauguration? Moby turned down the request, saying that the only way he would agree to such a gig would be if the President agreed, as payment, to release his tax returns.
A snide comment, sure, but their feud continued as Moby later took to social media to hurl a number of unverified claims about Trump colluding with Russia. Moby’s run of accusations came following the statement: “After spending the weekend talking to friends who work in DC, I can safely (well, ‘accurately’…) post the following things…”
Moby’s God complex
Finally, let’s end with a big one, as the most outlandish accusation that Moby has ever made is that he, himself, may be God. After criticising the divine being for not making humans feel like they were on ecstasy all the time, he pondered the possibility that he actually might be the big man.
“Maybe I was a new god,” he said. “A benign god. But a complicated god, with a secular dominion over sweetness and filth.”
