Priscilla Presley on Michael Jackson: 'I just felt that he wanted the Presley name'

"The King of Pop was allying himself with the King of Rock and Roll," writes Priscilla Presley of her late daughter Lisa Marie's 1994 marriage to pop star Michael Jackson in the new memoir Softly, As I Leave You.

Jackson was a big fan of Elvis, Priscilla says, and she was always suspicious of his motives in pursuing their daughter.

"I just felt that he wanted the name," she tells RNZ's Saturday Morning.

Priscilla was 21 when she took the Presley name after meeting Elvis when she was just 14.

At the time they met - 1959 - such age-gap relationships were "not unusual" in the American South, she says.

"If you look back, a young girl would have a husband who was older. That wasn't something that was not heard of."

During their six-year marriage, Priscilla sometimes travelled with Elvis, but "became a bit lost" and was often "very lonely" as his wife.

"I was living Elvis's life and I really needed to find out, actually, who I was and, you know, make friends.

"It was Elvis's friends, Elvis's time, Elvis's choices. Going to bed very, very early. Early mornings. He just wanted to do what he did. And that was sing, get on the bus and go on to the next show."

Excessive drug use was becoming problematic for Elvis, too.

"Back in the day, doctors would give… I mean, there was no problem. If you felt you wanted something, you got it.

"Elvis couldn't sleep at night. And of course, being Elvis Presley, he got what he wanted."

A lot of the entertainers in the late '60s and early '70s were "helped by pills", Presley says.

"It started out with sleeping pills and then Vegas came [Presley's 1969-to-1976 Las Vegas residency].

"It was difficult for him to keep high, you know, to keep, 'Oh, wonderful to see you, blah, blah, blah, come on in’.

"There were also a lot of women around, so… for me, it was time to go."

When Priscilla separated from Elvis in 1973, their daughter Lisa Marie was five years old.

In Softly, As I Leave You, she writes about Lisa Marie's "shocking" death resulting from a bowel obstruction at just 54.

The night before her death in 2023, Lisa Marie and Priscilla had attended a screening of the Baz Luhrmann biopic Elvis.

After the film, Lisa Marie pulled out of their plan to have a drink and said she wasn't feeling good, Priscilla says.

"I said, 'Please call me when you get home'. That was the last call I got. She passed the next day."

Back in August 1977, Priscilla says she was still close with Elvis when she found out from his manager that he'd died at Graceland.

"It wasn't like he was out of my life in any way."

Although she later had a long-term relationship and a son with entrepreneur Marco Garibaldi, Elvis was the only man Presley married and she says she still thinks about him every day.

"I always loved him. I love him to this very day. I didn't leave him because I didn't love him."

Now 80, Priscilla says she is single, has lots of friends and is leading a "good life" that she hopes to maximise.

"I have a son that I have to be here for. He went through his life with the drugs as well. Thank God he's clean now, but I still have to be around. I can't let him down and not be here for him."

An Evening with Priscilla Presley takes place in Christchurch on 19 November and Auckland on 20 November.