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Priscilla Presley’s new memoir reveals the real reason she left Elvis Presley — and offers insight into how the music legend was still a major part of her life even after their split.
“I did not leave Elvis because I no longer loved him. I loved him as much on the day I left as on the day we married,” Priscilla, now 80, wrote in Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, published on Tuesday, September 23. “I left Elvis because I needed a life of my own. I was living his life. Just as Elvis was searching for the meaning of his life, I was searching for mine.”
Priscilla has previously discussed her affair with her karate instructor, Mike Stone, but made it clear in this book that he was “just one catalyst” that led to her divorce from Elvis.
“The marriage had been crumbling for years,” she wrote.
Priscilla met Elvis when she was 14 years old. They didn’t start a physical relationship until they got married in May 1967, when she was 21. The former couple shared one daughter together, the late Lisa Marie Presley, who was born in February 1968. (Priscilla revealed that Elvis asked whether she wanted an abortion during her pregnancy.)
Priscilla filed for divorce from Elvis in 1972, when Lisa Marie was 4 years old. Their split was finalized the following year. Elvis died at age 42 in 1977.
Keep scrolling for Priscilla’s revelations about Elvis from Softly, As I Leave You:
Why They Split
Priscilla explained that Elvis “was accustomed to coming first” and was “unprepared to share” her with Lisa Marie.
“I became jealous of a nanny taking care of my daughter when I should be taking care of her,” Priscilla wrote. “I felt guilty about having a nanny there when Lisa woke up in the middle of the night and started crying.”
Priscilla explained that she “struggled” through this time of her life.
“It was painful trying to keep our family together. I felt like a failure as both a mother and a wife. Eventually, I had to choose,” she continued. “By the time Lisa was 4 years old, I knew I had to make a decision. So I realized it was time for me to go. Elvis was stunned.”
Details on Their Sex Life
Priscilla wrote that “Elvis lost interest in me sexually” after Lisa Marie was born.
“He had never been able to make love to a woman who’d had a child,” she recalled. “He had put his mother on a pedestal, and after Lisa was born, he put me on one, too. It is impossible to make love on a pedestal.”
The singer was always “flirtatious and very affectionate,” but it never went beyond that. They had sex one last time after Pricilla decided to leave. Elvis, she wrote, thought the divorce had something to do with her affair.
“I didn’t leave because Elvis had forced himself on me when he found out about Mike. He had not. Elvis had felt emasculated,” she wrote. “Elvis made love to me forcefully, not forcibly. His usual tenderness and consideration for me were missing. It was emotionally hurtful, and it left me with an unhappy memory of my last experience of sexual intimacy with Elvis.”
Elvis Would Always Call
When Priscilla was dating Robert Kardashian Sr., she received a late-night phone call from Elvis, who “always complicated things,” she wrote.
“Robert was sound asleep in bed with me when the phone rang at 2:00 a.m. Fortunately, he was a sound sleeper, so I leaped out of bed and grabbed the phone before it woke him,” she recalled. “Elvis was calling from the hotel after a performance. … It had certainly never occurred to him that I might be with another man. Despite our divorce, he still couldn’t wrap his head around my being with someone else.”
Kardashian, who died in September 2003, “never knew” that she had gotten a call from Elvis that night.
Austin Butler’s Portrayal of Elvis
Priscilla praised the 2022 Elvis movie and wrote how “brave” Butler was to play her ex-husband.
“He was amazing. His voice sounded so much like Elvis’s that it was uncanny,” she wrote. “Of all the actors I’d seen play Elvis, I’d never seen anyone who could compare with Austin.”
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