The Heartbreaking Fact About Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley's Like Story
Marriage to Elvis Presley used to be by hook or by crook untenable, nonetheless Priscilla Presley—who used to be 14 when she met the rock and roll superstar—loved him and remained the keeper of his legacy after his tragic death.
No longer all story treasure tales are lengthy.
Bigger than 48 years after his death, Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley stay embedded in our collective consciousness as a unit, the footage of the couple dancing at their 1967 bridal ceremony gathered iconic, their family photos with toddler daughter Lisa Marie Presley freshly heartbreaking.
The precise instances didn't final ad infinitum, to squawk the least, nonetheless Priscilla remained the keeper of Elvis' legacy for decades after his death in 1977, turning Graceland into a world vacationer vacation discipline and making sure the Memphis property stayed in their family.
Within the wake of Lisa Marie's death in 2023, granddaughter Riley Keough is now the sole proprietor of Graceland. However Priscilla will at some point be laid to relaxation there, alongside her unhurried ex-husband, their daughter and grandson Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide in 2020.
Even when, speculation that Elvis, born 91 years within the past on Jan. 8, is mainly alive and well remains an element.
“There’s been so significant that’s untruthful accessible—things like Elvis is gathered alive and hidden somewhere,” Priscilla, 80, told Other people final year. “I wish he used to be gathered alive.”
Attributable to even even though she divorced Elvis, Priscilla couldn't reduction falling—and staying—in treasure with him.
How did Priscilla Presley meet Elvis Presley?
Priscilla Beaulieu used to be 14 when she first met then-24-year-mature Elvis Presley at a occasion in West Germany in September 1959.
The newborn's father, Navy pilot Lt. James Wagner, died in a aircraft shatter when she used to be six months mature and mom Ann remarried Air Power Capt. Paul Beaulieu. Their family, including Priscilla and her five youthful half-siblings, moved around quite a bit, as military families usually cancel, Wiesbaden being most attention-grabbing their latest cease.
Elvis had been drafted into the U.S. Navy in March 1958, a usual-guy flip of occasions that the “Hound Dog” singer unnerved would build a damper on his skyrocketing occupation.
It had barely been a year-and-a-half since he'd made his world-rattling debut on The Ed Sullivan Reward, sending his fans into hysterics and scaring the puritanical kinds along with his swiveling hips, and he had already equipped millions of records and acquired his 18-room Memphis mansion identified as Graceland.
He had an inclination in the direction of excess, as his flamboyant dwelling decor and bespoke cloth cabinet would later attest, nonetheless he used to be moreover a mama's boy with an mature-new traipse—in particular when it got right here to ladies performing like girls (even while boys would be boys). The death of his mom, Gladys Presley, on Aug. 14, 1958, when she used to be most attention-grabbing 46 used to be an plentiful blow that many shut to him acknowledged he by no methodology got over.
In a significant-person account for Other people in 1985 coinciding with the release of her memoir Elvis and Me, Priscilla recalled being launched to Elvis at his condominium condo shut to the Navy nefarious in Corrupt Nauheim. The rock and roll superstar asked her, “Successfully, what maintain we right here? What are you, about a junior or senior in high school?” When she told him she used to be in ninth grade, he chuckled and acknowledged, “Why, you're precise a baby.”
Then he strolled over to the piano and started singing. “I saw Elvis looking out to salvage my consideration,” Priscilla remembered. “I realized that the much less response I showed, the extra he began singing precise for me. I couldn't deem that Elvis Presley used to be looking out to ticket me.”
She used to be precise carrying “a bit sailor dress” that evening, she later remembered to UPI, on account of she might gathered barely deem she used to be going to meet Elvis.
Priscilla used to be invited support to his condo for one other gathering. And one other. On that third evening, he invited her upstairs to be by myself, she recalled to Other people, assuring her, “I squawk I'll by no methodology cancel anything else to damage you. I'll cope with you precise like a sister.”
When did Elvis Presley start up dating Priscilla?
Her of us didn't prefer it in any admire, nonetheless when it was sure she wasn't going to remain away, Priscilla's stepfather insisted they now not now not up to meet the person. When Elvis got right here for dinner, dressed to ticket in fats uniform, Paul leveled with him: What cancel you wish?
“'Successfully, sir, I happen to be very enraged by her,'” Priscilla remembered the “Don't Be Cruel” singer, whose lower half used to be censored all over his third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Reward, telling her father. “'She's quite a bit extra ancient than her age and I revel in her firm. It hasn't been straight forward for me, being away from dwelling and all. It gets kinda lonely. I advise you might snarl I need somebody to consult with. You don't wish to dismay about her, Captain. I'll take precise care of her.'”
Despite their technically unconsummated relationship, they was “deeply alive to,” Priscilla told Other people. “Something in his Southern upbringing had taught him that the 'precise' woman used to be to be saved for marriage. I was that woman. On the an identical time, he molded me into his woman. I wore the clothes, hairstyle and make-up of his careful picking.“
Early on, she moreover began to resent having to share him with so many admirers.
“It used to be most attention-grabbing unhurried within the evening, after we maintain been in his mattress room, that I was if truth be told chuffed,” she told Other people. Where, she described, they'd kiss and talk for hours. Priscilla has maintained that they by no methodology had sex except their bridal ceremony evening.
However she began to maintain disaster preserving up at school, and one evening he gave her a handful of capsules to support her now stay unsleeping the next day. She didn't take them, most attention-grabbing discovering out later it used to be Dexedrine—amphetamines, that is, which Elvis began the spend of when he used to be within the Navy.
When did Elvis Presley and Priscilla reunite after meeting in Germany?
When Elvis returned to the U.S. in March 1960, Priscilla used to be told by paparazzi that Elvis had began dating Nancy Sinatra (the first of many stars he'd be linked to) before she got a call from him. Three weeks after he left Germany, he at final did salvage entangled, and so began Priscilla's “speak of suspended animation,” she told Other people, “attempting forward to his rare calls.”
Most regularly it’d be about a weeks, every so regularly extra. They hadn't talked in months or viewed one any other in two years, Priscilla recalled, when in February 1962 he invited her to fly out to Los Angeles. After they'd joyful her dad, Elvis sent her a spherical-trot back and forth firstclass designate for a two-week stay.
But even after some cuddle time when she first arrived, he told her she couldn't stay overnight at his condo and had a member of his entourage force her to the home of some guests. Priscilla later stumbled on out that he had most attention-grabbing now not too lengthy within the past shipped his supposedly former lady friend Anita Wood support to Memphis, and he used to be looking out to withhold away from his guest from out of metropolis being show veil for any unhurried-evening phone calls.
However the consult with, including a decadent boulevard trot back and forth to Las Vegas, the place Elvis equipped her extra garments and let her know that he would know if she used to be with any guy other than him, used to be intoxicating ample.
When did Priscilla Presley first switch to Graceland?
Priscilla spent Christmas of 1962 at Graceland, and when she went support to Germany, she told her mom that Elvis wanted her to switch to Memphis to withhold out high school.
Priscilla might are living along with his father and stepmother, Elvis told Paul.
“Declaring his intentions honorable, he swore that he loved and wanted and revered me,” Priscilla told Other people. “Actually, he couldn't are living without me, he acknowledged, intimating that at some point we'd marry. In that mild, there used to be shrimp my of us might cancel nonetheless snarl sure, and by hook or by crook they did.”
Priscilla did switch in with Vernon and Dee Presley, technically, while she attended the all-woman Immaculate Thought Cathedral High School in Memphis, nonetheless spent so significant time at Graceland with Elvis, she used to be by hook or by crook precise living there.
“Other people maintain acknowledged, 'Oh my gosh, I can't deem your of us let you trot along with this stranger,'” Priscilla acknowledged on Correct Morning The United States in 2017. “However it used to be a in point of fact harmless time. I loved him very significant. I no doubt felt safe…We are able to’t evaluate it to at the present time. We gathered had morals, high celebrated. There used to be somewhat about a care.”
However Elvis used to be moreover making a couple of movies a year, all with sexy leading girls, and even though he wasn't having as many flings along with his co-stars as rumor would maintain it, he moreover wasn't living the lifetime of a person that used to be spoken for.
Life at Graceland “used to be lonely” for her in these first years, Priscilla admitted to Closer Weekly in 2017. Elvis' controlling manager, Col. Tom Parker, didn't need it identified that his precious client had a trusty lady friend, for dismay they'd quit their very safe hopes of being with Elvis and cease shopping for records, and there weren't even any images of the pair all the blueprint in which thru the home.
Parker used to be “model” to her, Priscilla added, nonetheless “he precise didn't need [fans] to know I was 'the one.'”
And but every so regularly Elvis picked her up from school in a limo and flew her out to L.A. when he used to be making movies. “It used to be a life-vogue so incorrect,” Priscilla told Other people in 1978, “that I'm precise thankful I've approach out sane.”
Somehow Elvis by no methodology veered from the direction he made up our minds on with Priscilla, getting down on one knee in her mattress room at Graceland right now before Christmas in 1966 and proposing with a 3 1/2-carat diamond surrounded by 20 extra diamonds, the ring by Memphis jeweler Harry Levitch.
The Customary Elvis-Themed Las Vegas Marriage ceremony
Seeking to withhold every little thing under wraps as significant as that you will imagine, Tom had Elvis and Priscilla fly from Palm Springs to Las Vegas at around stupid evening on Can also honest 1, 1967, their bridal ceremony day. Frank Sinatra loaned the couple his non-public jet.
They got their license at about 3 a.m., Priscilla remembered to Closer, and tied the knot in a room at the Aladdin Resort in front of 14 of us, the ceremony officiated by Nevada Supreme Court Identify David Zenoff. A fast press conference and a champagne breakfast for 100 company adopted downstairs. (They later threw a greater occasion at Graceland.)
“My bridal ceremony used to be very abnormal,” Priscilla recalled, per Vogue. “It used to be the of us closest to us, and non-public, and that's how we wanted it. We didn't want a fan membership. We didn't want a circus.”
After the ceremony, Elvis quipped, “Successfully, I advise it used to be about time. With the life I had, I made up my thoughts it’d be most efficient to wait.”
What used to be Elvis and Priscilla Presley's marriage genuinely like?
Nine months to the day after they was husband and wife, daughter Lisa Marie Presley used to be born in Memphis on Feb. 1, 1968. The novel of us maintain been greeted like royalty as they left the health facility to lift their baby dwelling to Graceland.
Elvis used to be a doting, loving father, Priscilla told Closer, nonetheless he didn't alternate diapers—”That wasn't a person's job”—and had a tricky time looking out at the toddler eat, as a result of the inevitable drool. He did, on the opposite hand, buy Lisa Marie a fur coat when she used to be 3 and hand out $5 for lost toddler enamel. When he equipped his safe jet in 1975, he christened it the “Lisa Marie.”
However “with Elvis,” Priscilla outlined to Other people in 1978, “my life used to be his life. He had to be chuffed. We by no methodology scared him. My issues maintain been secondary.”
Moreover, she recalled to Other people, “Ladies folk gravitated to him, so I’d be worried when he had to head locations by myself. I’d even trot along with him to salvage his enamel cleaned! I repeatedly had an gape on him on account of each person on this planet used to be after him.”
And it's been reported in a tall replace of accounts of Elvis' life that he wasn't as drawn to Priscilla romantically after she was a mom.
While they maintain been married, even though, “I was repeatedly in a position to greet him at the door and pamper him,” Priscilla acknowledged. “I loved taking care of Elvis very significant. I loved tending to him. I loved feeding him. We would toddler talk, on account of you wish to maintain your safe language if you’ve gotten that many of us around. It used to be an exact life. It used to be various, nonetheless it used to be ours.”
Why did Elvis and Priscilla Presley salvage divorced?
Elvis used to be a persistent cheater and, by hook or by crook, Priscilla told Closer, she stepped out, too. She tried to omit what used to be occurring for “as lengthy as I might,” she acknowledged. “However I did know that there used to be some finagling going on.”
His prescription drug spend moreover was extra of a discipline, and Priscilla acknowledged on Correct Morning The United States that seeing the scene in Elvis in which her youthful self (played by Olivia DeJonge) tells her husband to search reduction for his “dependency” touched a nerve.
“It used to be getting an increasing number of extra gruesome as time went by,” Priscilla recalled, “the place he precise used to be like, rebelling.”
Elvis moreover had a temper, and wasn't used to anybody telling him no.
“If he saw somebody he didn't like on the TV, he'd salvage his gun out and blow it up,” Priscilla acknowledged. “Then he would enlighten his daddy to head salvage one other TV.”
Did Elvis and Priscilla Presley maintain a pleasant divorce?
When their divorce used to be finalized in 1973, they left the courtroom hand in hand. Priscilla used to be gathered most attention-grabbing 28.
Priscilla brought Lisa Marie to indubitably one of Elvis' Las Vegas presentations later that year, and as phase of a lengthy off-the-cuff monologue that had change into phase of his act of unhurried, the entertainer paid tribute to his ex (“She's a sexy chick, I'll enlighten you evidently, boy”) and told the target audience they remained “the easiest of guests.”
“Our divorce got right here about, now not on account of of 1 other man or one other woman,” he persevered, “nonetheless on account of of the circumstances intelligent my occupation. I was touring too significant, long gone too significant…I didn't mediate it used to be vibrant to her.”
He joked about their $2 million divorce settlement, after which he gave her a white mink coat—and she gave him, he bragged, a $42,000 Rolls Royce.
“That's the form of relationship we maintain,” he quipped.
Priscilla told Other people in 1978 that she persevered to head to Graceland with Lisa Marie “like we maintain been by no methodology divorced. Elvis and I gathered hugged one any other, gathered had treasure. We would snarl, 'Mommy acknowledged this' and 'Daddy acknowledged that.' That helped Lisa to feel trusty. There used to be by no methodology any arguing or bitterness.”
Having a peek support decades later, “I genuinely treasure the massive instances,” she told Other people. “As you develop up, there are repeatedly fears and insecurities. However as you change into old you heed it all.”
Tragically, Elvis didn't salvage significant older. Twisted on capsules, surrounded by sure-men and eating ample fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches to originate sure combination would repeatedly be usually known as “The Elvis” ever after, his well being began to deteriorate.
The living fable died of a coronary heart assault at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, when he used to be most attention-grabbing 42.
What took place to Priscilla Presley after Elvis Presley's death?
Priscilla used to be heartbroken.
“We by no methodology thought he'd trot,” she reflected to Entertainment Tonight in 2017 earlier than the fortieth anniversary of Elvis' death. “We precise by no methodology, ever had that in our minds.”
That day she used to be headed out on an errand along with her sister when their father known as and told her that Elvis' longtime boulevard manager Joe Esposito used to be looking out to salvage entangled along with her.
“The first order I believed of used to be [Lisa Marie], on account of my daughter used to be visiting and used to be speculated to approach support dwelling that day on account of school began, so I was looking out to flee dwelling,” Priscilla acknowledged. “I mediate I ran every crimson mild. I felt this urgency, so as soon as I pulled into my driveway, my phone used to be ringing and I ran in and might usually salvage the predominant within the door looking out to salvage to the phone. And then it used to be Joe and he told me the news, and it used to be so devastating that I precise went to my room and tried to glimpse how this took place, and what took place, and precise stayed there except they sent a aircraft for me.
“They sent a jet to approach support, and going into that condo and hearing the total of us—in particular his father, who I will, to at the present time, gathered withhold in thoughts him crying in such bother, howling—that it gathered resonates the loss and the impact.”
Priscilla was a co-executor of the “King of Rock and Roll's” property after the death of the singer's father, Vernon Presley, in 1979. Till it passed into Riley's fingers after Lisa Marie's death, Priscilla used to be instrumental in preserving Graceland—the place Elvis' of us and grandmother are moreover buried—start as a vacationer vacation discipline/pilgrimage discipline. Elvis moreover remains indubitably one of many highest-earning deceased celebrities of all time.
However even though Vernon had left the keys to the fortress to somebody else, it's now not as if the trip of being in treasure with indubitably one of many most magnetic of us ever to accelerate the earth used to be precise going to go away.
“He used to be such an impact in my life, in every methodology,” Priscilla told Entertainment Tonight in 2017. “He used to be my mentor, he used to be my confidant. I wrote this in my e book. He used to be every little thing. In my e book I wrote 'my God,' on account of I lived and breathed him.”
And she by no methodology remarried, telling an target audience all over a Q&A at South Level On line casino in Las Vegas this past November that she merely didn't wish to.
The Naked Gun superstar did maintain relationships, and she welcomed son Navarone Garibaldi with partner Marco Garibaldi in 1987. They shatter up up in 2006 after two decades collectively.
However as far as husbands maintain been concerned, she'd already been married to Elvis. “No person might ever match him,” she acknowledged.
Priscilla applauded Austin Butler's all-out flip as her tirelessly impersonated and but inimitable ex in 2022's Elvis, writing on Fb after a non-public preview that it used to be “an exact account told brilliantly and creatively that most attention-grabbing Baz [[Luhrmann], in his queer artistic methodology, might maintain delivered.”
The actual person alive who genuinely is aware of what took place between her and Elvis within the support of closed doors, Priscilla acknowledged on Correct Morning The United States in June 2022 that she used to be “pleasantly vastly surprised” by Olivia De Jonge's portrayal of her, appreciating that the character “used to be sensitive and…caring and…a bit solid with him as well.”
However admittedly, Priscilla acknowledged, “I'm sitting there looking out at this film and going, 'God I wish he might peek this.'”
Right here's a recordsdata to Elvis and Priscilla's family tree:
Elvis Presley
In life, Elvis Presley used to be indubitably one of many easiest musical artists of all time. And the “Don't Be Cruel” singer remained a towering superstar after his premature death from coronary heart failure—as a result of cardiovascular and hypertensive coronary heart disease exacerbated by prescription drug abuse—at the age of 42 in 1977.
When he used to be 23, he met 14-year-mature Priscilla Beaulieu in 1959 while he used to be stationed in what used to be then West Germany all over his time serving within the U.S. Navy. While Priscilla has maintained that they’d a somewhat chaste relationship except she was 18, she permitted her eminent boyfriend's invitation to withhold out high school in Memphis, ostensibly living with Elvis' father Vernon Presley and stepmother Dee Presley nonetheless spending most of her time at Graceland.
Elvis and Priscilla got married on Can also honest 1, 1967, at the Aladdin hotel in Las Vegas. Nine months later, daughter Lisa Marie Presley used to be born on Feb. 1, 1968.
Priscilla Presley
“I loved taking care of Elvis very significant,” Priscilla, who used to be 21 when she married the King of Rock and Roll, told Other people in 2021. “I loved tending to him. I loved feeding him. We would toddler talk, on account of you wish to maintain your safe language if you’ve gotten that many of us around. It used to be an exact life. It used to be various, nonetheless it used to be ours.”
Their life as husband and wife ended after they separated in February 1972. After their divorce used to be finalized the next year, Elvis candidly sharing all over indubitably one of his Vegas presentations that they shatter up up on account of he used to be “touring too significant, long gone too significant.”
While Priscilla moved to Los Angeles with Lisa Marie, they’d gathered spend time at Graceland as a family, the matriarch telling Other people in 1978, “That helped Lisa to feel trusty. There used to be by no methodology any arguing or bitterness.”
When Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977, Priscilla used to be devastated. “I might now not face the actuality that I’d by no methodology peek him alive again,” she wrote in her 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. “He had repeatedly been there for me. I depended on him, precise as he depended on me. We had a bond.”
Lisa Marie Presley
Lisa Marie, 9 years mature at the time, used to be at Graceland when her father died.
“I was repeatedly unnerved about my dad dying,” the rock scion wrote in her memoir From Right here to the Huge Unknown, which used to be posthumously launched in 2024. “Most regularly I’d peek him and he used to be out of it. Most regularly I’d uncover him passed out. I wrote a poem with the motorway, 'I’m hoping my daddy doesn’t die.'”
And the day he passed, she current within the e book, “my life as I knew it is miles fully over.”
Lisa Marie went on to vary into a singer-songwriter in her safe precise, releasing her debut album To Whom it Can also honest Instruct in 2003.
She married musician Danny Keough in 1988 and their union produced daughter Riley Keough and son Benjamin Keough before they divorced in 1994.
Lisa Marie swapped vows with Michael Jackson on Can also honest 26, 1994, now not up to three weeks after her divorce used to be finalized. Their headline-making marriage lasted now not up to two years, nonetheless Lisa-Marie told Oprah Winfrey in 2010—a year after Michael's surprising death—that they’d persevered to peek one any other on and off for years, that she'd “by no methodology felt like that around one other human being.”
Lisa Marie married avowed Elvis fan Nicolas Cage in August 2002. He filed for divorce that November nonetheless it wasn't finalized except Can also honest 2004.
In an announcement, the actor vowed to now not talk about their breakup, nonetheless acknowledged he loved Lisa Marie, who in flip acknowledged at the time, “I'm unhappy about this, nonetheless we shouldn't maintain been married within the first speak. It used to be a tall mistake.”
The bride's ex-husband Danny served as most efficient man when Lisa Marie married musician Michael Lockwood in January 2006. They welcomed fraternal twin daughters Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood and Finley Aaron Like Lockwood in 2008.
Lisa Marie filed for divorce in 2016 and the complaints was messy, ensuing within the twins mercurial living with Priscilla. The shatter up used to be by hook or by crook finalized in Can also honest 2021.
Two days after attending the Golden Globes in reinforce of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, starring Austin Butler as the titular fable, Lisa Marie died on Jan. 12, 2023. The blueprint used to be resolute to be a shrimp bowel obstruction caused by scar tissue from outdated bariatric surgical treatment. She used to be 54.
Navarone Garibaldi
Priscilla welcomed son Navarone with then-partner Marco Garibaldi Garcia on March 1, 1987. A musician like his half-sister, Marco fronts the L.A.-essentially essentially based mostly band Them Weapons.
He married longtime lady friend Elisa Achilli in 2022 on the grounds of a 16th-century fortress-was-luxury hotel in Switzerland.
“They've been collectively for four years,” Priscilla told Other people at the time, “and we've all been waiting patiently for at the present time.”
Riley Keough
Riley used to be born Can also honest 29, 1989, to Lisa Marie and her first husband, Danny Keough. A mannequin, singer and actress identified for The Girlfriend Ride, Daisy Jones & the Six and movies including Magic Mike and Logan Lucky, she was the sole proprietor of Graceland after her mom's death.
She moreover space out to total Lisa Marie's unfinished e book, telling Other people upon its release in 2024, “What she wanted to cancel in her memoir, and what I’m hoping I’ve carried out in finishing it for her, is to head under the magazine headline notion of her and show veil the core of who she used to be. To flip her into a 3-dimensional human being: the easiest mom, a wild baby, a fierce pal, an underrated artist, frank, comical, traumatized, joyous, grieving, every little thing that she used to be within the middle of her excellent life.”
Riley married Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen in 2015. They share daughter Tupelo Storm, born in August 2022 thru surrogate, and one other baby they quietly welcomed in early 2025.
Benjamin Keough
Benjamin died by suicide in July 2020 at the age of 27. A acquire for Lisa Marie acknowledged at the time that she used to be “fully heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated nonetheless looking out to remain solid for her 11-year-mature twins” and Riley.
While Lisa Marie candidly wrote about her bother, noting in a 2022 essay for Other people that “you cancel now not 'salvage over it,' you cancel now not 'switch on,'” the depth of her loss got right here into sharper focal level after her safe death.
She printed in her memoir that she preserved Benjamin's physique on dry ice for two months on her L.A.-condo property before she used to be in a position to let him trot. He used to be by hook or by crook laid to relaxation at Graceland in October 2020.
Lisa Marie used to be buried next to her son now not up to three years after his death.
Harper Lockwood and Finley Lockwood
Harper and Finley, born Oct. 7, 2008, lead somewhat non-public lives living with their dad Michael, who was their precise guardian after Lisa Marie died.
The formative years don't put up significant to their respective Instagram accounts, nonetheless they paid tribute to their mom on the second anniversary of her death in 2025. Finley posted a pic to Instagram Reports of her and her sister as babies in Lisa Marie's palms, writing, “2 years…i equivalent to you largely.” Harper shared a snap from after they maintain been children, writing, “I can't deem it's been 2 years. I omit you and treasure you so significant mama.”
This account used to be initially published on Saturday, June 25, 2022 at 5 a.m. PT.
Source credit : eonline.com
