Priscilla Presley is getting candid about daughter Lisa Marie Presley‘s brief marriage to Michael Jackson, as well as speculation that she was “groomed” as a teen at the start of her relationship with Elvis Presley.
Priscilla’s relationship with Elvis is explored in Sofia Coppola‘s new film, Priscilla. The movie, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in September, depicts the early days of the couple’s romance, which began when Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24.
“When I first started dating him or, he would call my parents to see if I could come over just on the weekends, you know, maybe Friday, maybe Saturday,” Priscilla tells Piers Morgan in a wide-ranging interview for Talk TV’s Piers Morgan Uncensored that aired Thursday.
“That whole, I mean, part of my life was getting to know him, but the question was ‘Why me? Why is he drawn to me? Why is he asking my mother and father if it was OK if I would go visit?'” she continues. “When I put all the pieces together, it’s because I was the listener. I was the one that he trusted more, I think, than anyone, and I honored that and I would never give that up. I never told kids at school that I was seeing him. No one even knew, because I valued that trust.”
At the time, Priscilla notes, Elvis was still grieving the death of his mother, Gladys Presley, from one year prior. She claims he was also furious with his father, Vernon Presley, who had moved on romantically with another woman.
“He would pour his heart out to me and get emotional about it, because he was so close to his mother,” Priscilla recalls. “The trust factor meant a lot to him, a lot. And to this day there are things that I hold to my heart and I won’t give up.”
Morgan asks Priscilla to respond to critics who have suggested that the relationship was inappropriate and that Elvis had been grooming her, based on their ages at the time.
“It was a different time,” Priscilla says. “It was the early ’60s.”
She continues, “My mother would dress up for my father every day. When he came home from work, she was dressed up and women were that way. Not that it was just for our men, but we took care of ourselves and we wanted to be — when I say we, I include myself. My mother respected my father.”
She goes on to say that women only wore dresses, not pants, in that era, and that Elvis would take her shopping so that she had suitable outfits to wear on their dates.
“I don’t know about grooming me, I didn’t take it at that,” she says thoughtfully. “I never heard the word, I mean obviously it’s all new now but, you know, he loved to take me to beautiful stores to buy me an outfit. I didn’t have any money and he would take me to the movies every night. That’s when you dressed up and he wanted me to look good and not feel bad.”
She adds, “Look, you see what he wore. He would dress up to a T, so he wanted me to be dressed up also.”
Pressing further, Morgan suggests that Elvis would be “canceled” for pursuing a teenager in today’s post-MeToo world.
“I understand, but I was 14 in Germany and there was always people around,” Priscilla says. “Our talks were, yes, private but he never, ever, ever was aggressive, nor did he ever make love to me. I was somehow, like I said earlier, someone he trusted to talk to and pour his heart out.”
Earlier this week, it was reported by Variety that Lisa Marie had threatened to publicly denounce Priscilla for portraying Elvis as a “predator” prior to her death in January.
“I am worried that my mother isn’t seeing the nuance here or realizing the way in which Elvis will be perceived when this movie comes out,” Lisa Marie reportedly said in an email to the filmmaker. “I feel protective over my mother who has spent her whole life elevating my father’s legacy. I am worried she doesn’t understand the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have.”
Priscilla and Elvis wed on May 1, 1967, when Priscilla was 21. She has repeatedly stated that it was on their wedding night that the couple consummated their marriage and conceived their only child, daughter Lisa Marie.
“No one would believe that, but it’s the honest to God truth,” Priscilla says.
She and Elvis went their separate ways and divorced in 1973, before the King of Rock and Roll died in 1977.
In 1994, Lisa Marie would go on to marry the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. In her new interview, Priscilla admits that she was “very” concerned about the union and suspected that Jackson wed her daughter because he was “intrigued about Elvis.”
“I was honest with her,” Priscilla says of her reservations.
At one point, Priscilla recalls, she and Lisa Marie were walking together on a beach in Hawaii when the latter brought up her own worries about the relationship.
“She said, ‘Mom, I’m really concerned.’ This is while they were married,” Priscilla recalls. “And said that, ‘I never see him.’ I go, ‘What do you mean you never see him?'”
At that point, Lisa Marie admitted that Jackson was “always gone.”
“I go, ‘Where does he go?’ and she goes, ‘I don’t know. I don’t know where he goes. He’ll call me maybe three or four days later,'” Priscilla continues. “I said, ‘Well, don’t you ask him where he’s going?'”
Jackson allegedly told Lisa Marie that he was simply “around” and had “things to do.”
Priscilla says that the “Billie Jean” singer always seemed to make himself scarce around her, as well.
“I know he was a bit fearful of me,” she admits. “[Lisa Marie] told me you know, ‘He’s afraid of you’ and I go, ‘What is he afraid of me for? Why is he afraid? Why should he be afraid of me?’ She goes, ‘I dunno. He doesn’t think you like him.’ I said, ‘I’ve hardly talked to him ’cause he always hides.”
Jackson and Lisa Marie’s relationship was short-lived and the pair divorced in 1996, after one-and-a-half years of marriage.
Today, Priscilla says that she found Jackson to be “quite smart” and “truly talented” but she “never really got to know him.”
Priscilla is based on Priscilla’s own 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me, which details the couple’s courtship — which began in Germany in 1959 when Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24 — and subsequent marriage and divorce. The films stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi as the infamous couple.
“It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you and about your life and your love,” Priscilla said, overcome with emotion as she discussed the film during a press conference panel in Venice. “I think Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework. We spoke a couple of times, and I really put everything out for her that I could.”
“Even though I was 14, I was older in life than in numbers,” she added of her relationship with Elvis. “That was the attraction. And people think, ‘Oh, it was sex, it was this.’ Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving. But he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought and that was our relationship.”
Priscilla is in theaters now.
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