"I drank a shot of vodka to brace myself, pulled my flaccid penis out of my pants, and casually walked past Trump." The night that a world-famous musician decided to "knob-touch" the future President of the USA, and why he has no regrets about it

"I think I knob-touched Donald Trump.”

It's 2001, and punk rocker-turned- superstar DJ Moby is at a party in a building on New York’s Park Avenue with two close friends, Lee and Clarice. In attendance too is Donald Trump, the New York real estate developer who would go on to become the 45th and 47th President of the United States.

At some point in the evening, according to his recollection in his 2019 memoir Then It Fell Apart, Moby's friend Lee decided that now would be a good time to tell his famous friend about a 'game' that he and his friends used to play in college. This 'game', in reality, could more accurately be described as 'sexual assault', given that it involved young men daring one another to rub their penis against people "indiscriminately", as Moby recalled in a 2019 interview with US talk show host Bill Maher, with the 'winner' being the individual who brushed against the most people.

"It’s not sexual," Moby insisted to Maher, "there’s no gender involved."

In his memoir, Moby reveals that, after he'd explained the rules of this obnoxious frat boy game at said party, his friend Lee then said, "Moby, go knob-touch Donald Trump."

Reminiscing about the night in Then It Fell Apart, Moby wrote, "'Shit,' I said, realizing I now had to knob-touch Donald Trump.

"I drank a shot of vodka to brace myself, pulled my flaccid penis out of my pants, and casually walked past Trump, trying to brush the edge of his jacket with my penis. Luckily he didn’t seem to notice or even twitch."

"So the only person I've ever knob-touched in my entire life, is our utterly corrupt current president of the United States." the DJ told Vice News in 2020.

To bring the story up to date, Moby mentions the incident again in a new interview with The Times, and confesses that has no regrets about the incident, while adding the caveat that it occurred at a self-destructive and unhinged time of his life where he was "going out seven nights a week, drinking and doing tons of drugs".

“Some of the stuff I did I’m horrified by," he tells The Times , "some of the stuff I’m baffled by, but a few choices have actually stood the test of time and that would be one of them."

After Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the USA in 2016, Moby issued an open letter to America calling Trump "a dim-witted, racist, misogynist" and "an incompetent con-man".

Moby's 23rd studio album, Future Quiet, was released by BMG on February 20. This summer he will undertake an extensive European tour, comprising of 28-dates combining festivals appearances with headline shows at historic venues and striking open-air settings.

For ticket details, go here.