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When Priscilla Presley began writing her memoir, Softly, As I Leave You, the 80-year-old knew she had to tell her story before someone else did. \u201cWriting another book has been on my mind for a few years, and to finally get through it feels good,\u201d Presley tells Sunday Life over Zoom ahead of a speaking tour later this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in my 70s when I thought, \u2018Gosh, if I don\u2019t write this story, I\u2019m going to really regret it.\u2019 The thought of something happening to me before I got a chance to do another book felt very real,\u201d says Presley. \u201cI had to do it while I still have my head and my thoughts intact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Presley turned to truth-telling as a means of grieving the sudden loss of her daughter, Lisa Marie, in 2023 and the memoir follows her 1985 book, Elvis and Me. This latest offering navigates everything from falling in love as a teenager to the abundance of grief she has experienced, told from the perspective of a woman who has lived a full life. She also reflects on how that life changed after she married the king of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, Elvis Presley, in 1967.<\/p>\n
She was just 14 and Elvis was a superstar almost 10 years her senior when they first met in Germany, where Elvis was serving in the US army. After spells living with Elvis and his family in Los Angeles and Graceland, the home he\u2019d built near Memphis, they married when Priscilla was 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started living Elvis\u2019 life when I was young and that was hard for me,\u201d she says. \u201cThe people around him, the fame he carried, who he tried to be, and what he had to do to maintain it, was all encompassing. To see someone as famous as he was and how he handled it, well, I saw the good and the bad of it. He came out of it a different person.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaving Elvis after less than five years of marriage, with four-year-old Lisa Marie in tow, wasn\u2019t an easy decision, but it was the right one, she says. She packed more into those years than most people could in a lifetime, but for all the bright lights and fame, she felt lonely and unseen.<\/p>\n
If Presley has learnt one thing, it\u2019s that pain and loss can\u2019t define the rest of your life. Even so, she misses Lisa Marie terribly and says some days are harder than others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe experiences you go through make you stronger,\u201d she says. \u201cIn life, whether you\u2019re famous or not, we all go through confronting things. I have always been the sort of person who confronts all the things that come my way. But being in the limelight, there are many expectations of you, and I\u2019ve learnt that it\u2019s about having people you can trust around you that gets you through the very hard times.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu plays an Elvis record in Germany, where they first met.Credit: BETTMANN ARCHIVE<\/p>\n
The memoir begins with Presley summoning the courage to leave Elvis. It\u2019s well-documented that she left him for karate instructor Mike Stone in 1972, but Presley sets the record straight by saying it was the catalyst for the split but not the entire reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to leave Elvis because I got lost and I needed to find out who I was again,\u201d she says. \u201cI needed to find myself because I was living his life. I loved him, cared for him and worried about him, but something was missing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1968, Presley had started taking dance classes, which had opened her eyes to an existence beyond Graceland. \u201cAll of a sudden, I was discovering who I was and what I wanted to do and was a little more in charge of my life,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was outside the life I was living \u2013 a little bit of freedom, realising I had my own friends and my own life to live. I learnt a lot about myself during that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Presley remained close to Elvis after they split, the couple sharing custody of Lisa Marie. Their daughter, by then aged nine, was at Graceland on the day her father died in 1977 and Presley was flown there in her ex-husband\u2019s private jet when the news broke.<\/p>\n
In the memoir, Presley gives readers plenty of glimpses into who Elvis was away from the headlines \u2013 a deep thinker who read passages of the Bible out loud, even at 2am. He was intrigued by philosophy and human existence, perhaps querying his own destiny as a star.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried so hard to live it with him and be interested,\u201d says Presley of her husband\u2019s religious and philosophical interests. \u201cWe\u2019d be in bed at 2am, and he\u2019s still reading, and he\u2019s reading to me. I\u2019d be so tired but didn\u2019t want him to see I wasn\u2019t interested. It was so deep, but I was so young I had to fake it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Presley in Beverly Hills in 1980, less than three years after Elvis\u2019 death.Credit: Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images<\/p>\n
One of the first meals she cooked for Elvis \u2013 a bowl of spaghetti that was her own mother\u2019s signature dish \u2013 became the last she ever made for him. \u201cThe noodles were stiff, it was a mess,\u201d she says, laughing. But it was after she gave birth to Lisa Marie that Presley says Elvis changed towards her. Becoming a mother meant he saw her differently to other women around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the South, women didn\u2019t work much \u2013 they took care of their family and their husbands, and that\u2019s what I did for Elvis,\u201d she says. \u201cI quickly learnt how different the South was from California \u2013 a world with a lot of divorces. You didn\u2019t hear much about divorces back then.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I wanted to do all the things I did for Elvis. Nobody made me do them. It was of its time and what women did.\u201d<\/p>\n
These days, Presley lives with a cousin and her two dogs in a Californian mansion where she regularly catches up with her granddaughter, 36-year-old Riley Keough (one of Lisa Marie\u2019s four children). And last month she was in the UK promoting her new book with her son Navarone, 38, from Presley\u2019s 22-year relationship with Marco Garibaldi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try to stay with people who are \u2018up\u2019, people who aren\u2019t dreary or wear you down \u2013 it makes all the difference in the world,\u201d she says. \u201cWe all have issues, we\u2019ve all got problems, but we have to move out of that mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can\u2019t solve your problems, don\u2019t forget you still have hope, love and friends. And if you have a good friend, trust them \u2013 they\u2019ll be the ones who help you get things off your shoulders. We all need someone to talk to, someone who understands us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The late Lisa Marie Presley (left) and Priscilla in Las Vegas in 2011.Credit: WireImage<\/p>\n
She talks about Lisa Marie\u2019s relationships in her memoir and her disapproval of Michael Jackson\u2019s proposal. She would have liked to see Lisa Marie\u2019s marriage with actor Nicolas Cage work out, but says they were too alike, both hot-tempered. She also notes how the 2020 suicide of grandson Benjamin Keough destroyed Lisa Marie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really felt my daughter didn\u2019t want to be here after she lost her son,\u201d says Presley. \u201cHe was everything to her, and when he passed, that\u2019s when you saw her sinking because she missed him and grieved him so much. I honestly do believe she is in a better place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The death of Lisa Marie could have sent Presley spiralling too, but she remained strong. In her book, she also talks about helping Navarone with addiction to heroin and fentanyl.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a way, the book has been therapy for me,\u201d she says. \u201cMy daughter\u2019s death was unexpected, and I don\u2019t wish for anyone to experience the loss of a child. I still carry it with me, but I still have my son and other family I have to take care of.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never had a desire to take drugs to deal with pain because I saw what my loved ones went through. I saw Elvis go through it. I saw Navarone go through it. A friend has just gone through it. I don\u2019t have it in me to go down that road.\u201d<\/p>\n
See An Evening with Priscilla Presley in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, November 23-25.<\/p>\n
Lifeline: 13 11 14.<\/p>\n