"Then It Fell Apart" has proven to be all too self-fulfilling a title for musician Moby's second memoir.
Anyone hoping to see fireworks in the Q&A portions of the remaining dates on his book tour will be disappointed. He's cancelled all outstanding appearances in the wake of a flap over his and Natalie Portman's drastically conflicting accounts of whether they were romantically involved 20 years ago.
"I'm going to go away for awhile. But before I do, I want to apologize again, and to say clearly that all of this has been my own fault," Moby wrote on Instagram.
The producer and DJ was scheduled to make ticketed appearances promoting his second autobiography at the UK's Hay Festival on June 1, followed by the Manchester Literary Festival, Earth London and Dublin's Liberty Hall.
"All tickets will be refunded at the point of purchase, and Moby is happy to provide signed bookplates to everyone who bought tickets to these events," read an announcement on his website.
In the remainder of Moby's Instagram post, he did not deny the veracity of any stories he'd previously told, but apologised in other regards.
"I'm the one who released the book without showing it to the people I wrote about," he said. "I'm the one who posted defensively and arrogantly. I'm the one who behaved inconsiderately and disrespectfully, both in 1999 and 2019. There is obviously no one to blame but me. Thank you, and I'm sorry."
In his book, Moby had described Portman - then 18, though he said she was 20 - as "flirting" with him backstage, followed by further meetings he characterised as dating before she broke up with him.
The passages concerning Portman in Moby's book had been generally ignored until the actress spoke up in a Harper's Bazaar interview to say his account of their relationship was essentially a fiction. To her, the word "dating" didn't apply; "my recollection is a much older man being creepy with me when I just had graduated high school."
Australian Associated Press