Elvis ‘Always’ Had Something Critical to Say About Other Singers

For many singers and musicians, Elvis Presley was an early idol. Many people recall where they were the first time they ever heard his music. While they would speak highly about him, he typically didn’t extend the favor. According to his bodyguards, Elvis almost always spoke critically about other performers.

Elvis Presley was often critical of other singers

By the start of the 1970s, Elvis’ entourage knew they had to tread carefully around him. He was prone to explosive fits of anger. Sometimes, he pulled a gun on people who frustrated him. They learned that they shouldn’t talk about other performers to avoid stoking his ire. 

“For instance, Elvis doesn’t like too many other singers — at least living ones,” his bodyguard Red West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “He did admire Bobby Darin very much, but he has passed away. But generally Elvis will always have something critical to say about another singer. He doesn’t like competition.”

When other performers came to meet with Elvis, he tried to establish dominance by discussing his possessions and keeping them waiting.

There was one singer Elvis hated more than the others

While Elvis had problems with many singers, there was one who could set him off far more than the others. 

“Worst of all, he really hates Robert Goulet for some reason,” West said. “I don’t even remember whether he had ever met him or not or whether he had seen him perform live.”

He recalled a time when Elvis fired his gun at the television just because Goulet was on the screen. While he often threatened to shoot people, he actually fired shots at Goulet’s image.

“Anyway, one afternoon in 1974, he is eating breakfast and on comes Robert Goulet on the big-screen television set,” West recalled. “Very slowly, Elvis finishes what he has in his mouth, puts down his knife and fork, picks up this big mother of a .22 and — boom — blasts old Robert clean off the screen and the television set to pieces. He then puts down the .22, picks up his knife and fork and says, ‘That will be enough of that s***,’ and then he goes on eating.”

His bodyguards said this behavior got worse over the years

Elvis began to display more behavior like this over the years. He made outsized demands of his entourage and lashed out, sometimes violently, when they didn’t immediately act on his requests. According to West, he hadn’t behaved in this way at the start of his career.

“Now, I don’t mean he was selfish and big-headed all the time,” he said. “But he took to fits of anger that none of us had ever seen before. He wanted to be treated as something special. Of course, he was something special, but he had never demanded that special attention. He was always one of the boys. He would often share the driving on long gigs. We had shared everything, even our women.”

This behavior, among other things, led West and other bodyguards to release the tell-all book Elvis: What Happened?