Another day, another “what in the world?” passing through my head. Natalie Portman, who has been in movies since she was 13 years old, is, arguably, a household name. If it wasn’t Léon: The Professional, maybe it was her portrayal of Padme Amidala in Star Wars, or Jane in the Thor movies.
No matter how you know her, you know her. So, is it really surprising that there are, not one, but two accounts of men claiming that they had relationships with her? In Moby’s new memoir, Then It Fell Apart, he recounts a time in his past when he hung out and dated a “20-year-old” Portman. I put that in quotes because no one fact-checked the book, and Portman would not have been 20, but only 18 years old.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Portman tells a very different story than the one Moby paints in his memoir:
“I was a fan and went to one of his shows when I had just graduated,” she said. “When we met after the show, he said, ‘let’s be friends’. He was on tour and I was working, shooting a film, so we only hung out a handful of times before I realised that this was an older man who was interested in me in a way that felt inappropriate.”
That’s already inappropriate and problematic for Moby, but when you look into Natalie Portman’s history, it isn’t even the first time something like this has happened. A Twitter user pointed out that Jonathan Safran Foer also convinced himself of a “relationship” potential with Portman.
Natalie Portman also had to deal with Jonathan Safran-Froer leaving his wife for her despite them having no romantic relationship. How many bland men are convincing/deluded themselves that they have something going on with Portman??? https://t.co/PyDw185Bmv
— Avery Edison (@aedison) May 22, 2019
That brought me down a rabbit hole of research, looking into this Jonathan Safran Foer story and examining the toxic nature of what it means because, in reality, this happens quite frequently for women.
Think about it. How many times have women had to apologize for not being attracted to a man who has let his imagination run wild about their relationship, despite men not apologizing for the same thing? To be quite honest, when I was in high school, a man was going to ask me to prom in public, and when my friends told him not to because I’d tell him “no” in public, as well, I was the one who was seen as “a bitch,” but me being publicly denied a date just made me pathetic and had no repercussions for my crush.
It’s a constant struggle that women have to face, all because men feel a sense of entitlement to the women they have feelings for. So, in all honesty, this isn’t exactly surprising, but kudos to Natalie Portman for calling out both Moby and his publishers for not fact-checking the memoir.
(via The Guardian, image: Rich Polk/Getty Images for Disney)
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