Priscilla Presley remembers late daughter Lisa Marie Presley in her newly released memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis.
Priscilla, 80, was married to the late Elvis Prelsey from 1967 to 1973. In the wake of their public divorce, they remained close until his death at age 42 in 1977. Throughout their highly publicized marriage, the former couple welcomed daughter Lisa Marie in February 1968.
“Raising my daughter was a challenge for both of us. She was strong-willed from the beginning,” Priscilla wrote in the book, published on Tuesday, September 23. “Like her dad, she just came that way. Lisa had a mind of her own, and being Elvis’s daughter only reinforced it.”
Lisa Marie died at age 54 in January 2023 as the result of a cardiac arrest caused by a small bowel obstruction.
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Priscilla wrote that while the “dangerous complication” is ultimately what caused her daughter’s death, her “heart had really stopped beating” the day her son, Benjamin Keough, died by suicide at age 27 in July 2020.
“I like to believe that her son and her father were there to see her over,” Priscilla wrote of her daughter’s death. “I need to believe that my girl is not alone.”
Keep scrolling to read Priscilla’ revelations about Lisa Marie from Softly, As I Leave You:
The 1st Time Lisa Marie Saw Elvis Perform
Lisa Marie saw her father perform in Las Vegas shortly after she turned 5.
“Her eyes grew big as she saw her daddy, resplendent in his bejeweled costume, commanding the stage. She was rapt as he began to sing, and she looked at me occasionally with wonder,” she wrote. “That was the night Lisa Marie discovered that her father was the King. It was also the night she began to realize she was the little princess. Before, she had just been Lisa. Now she was Elvis Presley’s daughter. It was an identity that both enabled and haunted her for the rest of her life.”
Inside Lisa Marie’s Marriage to Michael Jackson
Priscilla wrote that she was “appalled” by her daughter’s brief marriage to late singer Jackson in the mid-1990s.
“I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty,” she claimed. “I didn’t believe he loved her. He married her at a time when he desperately needed good publicity that depicted him as a desirable heterosexual man.”
She wrote that Lisa Marie and Jackson’s relationship was “pure gold” for his image at the time. Priscilla claimed that Jackson “started reaching out” to Lisa Maria when “the child abuse charges” against him became public knowledge. (Jackson was arrested and charged with child molestation in 2003, but was found not guilty in 2005.)
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“I think that’s how he hooked her in the beginning. She felt sorry for him, and naturally, she believed in his innocence,” Priscilla wrote. “Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it.”
Priscilla said her relationship with her former son-in-law was “bizarre” the whole time he was with Lisa Marie. Jackson allegedly “wanted nothing to do” with Priscilla.
“He continued to go to great lengths to avoid me,” she recalled, noting that the “only actual contact” they ever had was a brief interaction at an Elvis tribute concert in Memphis during Jackson’s marriage to Lisa Marie.
“He said nothing to me on the way to the show. Lisa and I were appearing in the show, so there was no opportunity to talk to him when we arrived,” she wrote. “Early the next morning, he was gone. That was the sum total of my direct interactions with my son-in-law during the marriage.”
Lisa Marie’s Marriage to Nicolas Cage Was Drama
While Priscilla “liked” Cage for her daughter, their relationship was “like watching a soap opera,” she wrote. (Lisa Marie and Cage were briefly married in 2002.)
“They were not only romantically passionate but also passionate, period,” she recalled. “They screamed and they yelled, they threw things, and sometimes they broke things. They broke up. And the next day, or pretty close to it, they made up. Lisa and Nick broke up and made up so many times, it was dizzying.”
Priscilla admitted she had “little hope” that they would stay together after getting married. “I did my best to be optimistic,” she wrote, but after three months they separated.
“Though their parting was tumultuous and hard on both of them, they got past the initial trauma and remained friends,” Priscilla explained. “They were better off as friends. I think they both gained a little wisdom from the relationship.”
The 2023 Golden Globes
The awards show was Lisa Marie’s final public appearance prior to her death.
“I knew something was wrong. Her loose black dress had long sleeves and a halter collar that closed in front of her throat, but the dress didn’t camouflage her thinness,” Priscilla recalled, noting that her daughter was “a little out of it” the entire night. While they had plans to go out after the show, Lisa Marie went home because of stomach pain.
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“I didn’t know it was the last hug,” she wrote. “When she called to say she was safely home, I would have stayed on the line if I’d known it was the last time I’d hear her voice. But I didn’t know.”
The Day Priscilla Died
Priscilla made the decision in the hospital to remove Lisa Marie from all of the machines that were keeping her alive after doctors were able to restart her heart.
“I thought about my girl, my wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life,” she wrote. “I said what I had to. ‘Take her off the machine, Doctor.’ My voice was barely above a whisper.”
