The Most Haunting Things Priscilla Presley Has Said About Her Relationship With Elvis
Priscilla Presley was married to Elvis between 1967 and 1973, and she has worked tirelessly to maintain his legacy.
It has been over forty years since the death of Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll, yet still new revelations are emerging about his unusual and extravagant lifestyle, his relationships with those around him, and his behaviour in the years leading up to his untimely death at the age of just 42. His former wife, Priscilla, to whom he was married between 1967 and 1973, has continued to work tirelessly to maintain his legacy. She turned Elvis’s empty estate, Graceland, into an enormously successful museum which has been visited by millions across the world, and has given many interviews in the years since, keeping his memory alive and helping to make Elvis one of the highest earning deceased celebrities in the world.
Mixed in with her hard work defending the King’s reputation, however, Priscilla has also divulged many disquieting anecdotes about her life with the former music star. Their relationship, which began when she was just 14 and Elvis was 24, was often fraught and complicated heavily by Elvis’s lifestyle filled with constant touring, drug abuse, and financial pressures. He was, without doubt, a complex human being. Here are some of the most haunting things which Priscilla, now 76, has said about her relationship with Elvis.
7 Elvis Would Pull His Gun When Angered
One of the most haunting statements which Priscilla has made in the years since his death in 1977 is the fact that Elvis would often carry a gun on his person, and he would produce it randomly when upset. It could be something as small as a person he didn’t like appearing on the TV screen – and he would be unpredictably firing his .357 Magnum and surprising everyone in the room
“It’s funny now,” Priscilla has said of this behaviour. “But scary at first. Very scary. There was no warning. Maybe he was in a bad mood that day, or maybe he would just see someone he didn’t particularly care for so he’d just pick up the gun and …” Boom.
6 The King Would Control Every Aspect Of Priscilla’s Appearance
Another of Elvis’s strange behaviors would be to ‘dress up’ Priscilla to his tastes, dictating almost everything about her appearance and transforming her to fit the fashionable 60s aesthetic for big hair, big eyeliner, and big fashion. Often the clothing was provocative, and Priscilla has confessed to feeling uncomfortable with his controlling behavior which heavily suppressed her own sense of identity.
“At that time I just liked that he was paying attention to me,” Priscilla said. “He was very opinionated on what he wanted: ‘I don’t like you in that colour. Brown isn’t good for you. Green looks horrible, it’s a dull colour with no spark to it.’ I was a young kid, 16 years old, so I thought: ‘Oh, OK!’ It wasn’t until I got a little older that I started developing things that I liked.”
5 Elvis Would Sometimes Hit Priscilla
Priscilla has also described how Elvis would sometimes hit her when in a temper, recalling one particular occasion when he slapped for no reason at all.
“I remember sitting down doing my homework,” she said. “And when I would look up at him, he would slap me on my forehead and say: ‘Don’t do that, it gives you wrinkles on your forehead.’ I didn’t even think about wrinkles back then!”
4 Priscilla Has Also Implied That Elvis Sexually Assaulted Her
Perhaps the most disturbing story which the former Mrs. Presley has told is of what happened when Elvis began to suspect Priscilla had been having an affair. Enraged, he ordered her upstairs, and apparently forced himself on his wife, saying “This is how a real man makes love to a woman.”
Priscilla has often been uncomfortable discussing the incident. “I don’t want to talk about that, I really don’t,” she said, in an interview with The Guardian. “Elvis and I had a truly loving relationship, I have to say. I’m not going to taint it in any way. I was honest in my book but people go further, they try and pick out things that make it bigger and complicated.”
3 Priscilla Also Claims That She Communicates With Elvis’s Spirit
One of the most spiritual things Priscilla has said is that she frequently interacts with Elvis’s spirit.
“It’s as if Elvis is guiding me. I’m being guided by this energy,” she declared. “His spirit is communicating to me. When I go to Graceland, my gosh, I can walk in that door and see him walking down the stairs, I can hear laughter, I can hear the music playing in the music room. It’s a very surreal feeling. But it’s not scary, it’s beautiful.”
2 Elvis Would Give Priscilla Drugs
While living with Elvis at Graceland prior to their marriage, Elvis would frequently take drugs in Priscilla’s presence. Priscilla was still attending school, and would struggle to get up for her classes due to their erratic lifestyle – balancing being Elvis’s girlfriend with being an ordinary schoolgirl. In a 1985 interview with Barbara Walters, Priscilla described how Elvis offered her Dexedrine pills to help keep her awake. One time, Elvis gave her a dose he had become accustomed to – but she had not – and Priscilla overdosed, almost dying because Elvis chose not to call a doctor, and she remained unconscious for almost two days.
1 Elvis Took Priscilla To A Morgue
In the same interview, Priscilla described how Elvis took her to a morgue to satisfy his own curiosity, and partly for the “shock value” and “thrill” of it. Creepy!
