Last week Moby celebrated the 20th anniversary of his career-defining record, Play. Moby also released his second memoir, Then It Fell Apart, a followup to 2016’s Porcelain.
Then It Fell Apart picks up from the summer of 1999. Moby was at the peak of his relevance following the release of Play. The book is filled with anecdotes about his peak-fame hanky-panky. From his relationships with Hollywood darlings Natalie Portman and Christina Ricci to his beef with Eminem. The most shocking revelation was an encounter that Moby described with pre-fame Lana Del Rey, the bottle-blonde, trailer park pop hopeful Lizzy Grant.
So it foes, Moby attempted to court Lana Del Rey at a 3 am in a New York City bar back in 2006. Moby recalls inviting Lizzy back to his apartment after the bar closed, “She’d smiled and said no, she wouldn’t go home with me after just meeting me, but she would happily go on a date if I called her and asked her out,” he writes.
Check out ‘Porcelain’ by Moby
The pair went on their first date the following week. Eating at a vegan macrobiotic restaurant before heading to Moby’s five-floor penthouse in the El Dorado building on Central Park West.
During dinner she told me she was a musician so I asked, “Will you play me some of your music?”
“Sure, do you have a piano?”
“Yes, back on the second floor,” I said.
“Floors in an apartment.” She shook her head. “Moby you know you’re the man.”
“Ha, thanks,” I said.
“No, not like that. You’re a rich WASP from Connecticut and you live in a five-level penthouse. You’re ‘The Man.’ As in, ‘stick it to The Man.’ As in the person they guillotine in the revolution.”
I didn’t know if she was insulting me but I decided to take it as a compliment.”
Moby attempted to oppose Del Rey’s remark that he was “the man” by explaining that he grew up on welfare. The pair headed to the piano where Moby was impressed with her “haunting” music and “dark but strong” voice. He detailed a conversation about whether she planned to release music under the name “Lizzie Grant”, to which she responded. “I don’t know. When you say it like that it sounds kind of plain.”
Check out ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?’ by Moby
Perhaps this is where Grant’s decision to work under the moniker Lana Del Rey was born.
“I think it’s a nice name.” I sat next to her on the piano bench and started kissing her. She kissed me back — but then stopped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I like you. But I hear you do this with a lot of people.”
I wanted to lie, to tell her that I didn’t, that I was chaste, sane, and ethical. But I said nothing.
“I’d like to see you again,” she said.
“Me too.”
I walked her downstairs to the twenty-ninth floor and kissed her good night at the bank of the elevators.
This wasn’t how I imagined the night ending. I’d assumed that we would end up christening my new apartment with vodka and sex. But to my surprise, this was almost nicer.
That is the last of their romantic rendezvous detailed in the book. Elsewhere in the novel Moby confirms that Grant provided backup vocals for his side-project Little Death. “Lizzie Grant, whom I’d tried dating a couple of years ago, was one of our original backup singers, but she left the group to pursue her own career as Lana Del Rey.”
In Moby adjacent news, the musician recently revealed that he once drunkenly rubbed his genitals on Donald Trump at a party in the days following 9/11. Read more about it now.
