Elvis Presley Spilled Untrue Details About His Divorce From Priscilla Presley to a Crowd

Elvis and Priscilla Presley maintained a relationship after they divorced in 1973. The former couple wanted to remain friendly for the sake of their daughter, Lisa Marie, but they also still cared about each other. Elvis once explained all this to an audience. While a shocked Priscilla looked on, he went into detail about the reasons he thought they divorced.

Elvis Presley talked about his split from Priscilla Presley to an audience

Elvis and Priscilla were friendly enough after their divorce that she sometimes attended his shows, even if he had other girlfriends in attendance. At one of these shows, Elvis pointed out her presence to the audience while introducing the song “Softly As I Leave You.”

“It’s a beautiful song written by Marty Robbins, and I heard Franky Laine do it, I think it was, and I just loved the song and it has nothing to do with me personally or my ex-wife, Priscilla,” he told the crowd, per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “She’s right here. Honey, stand up.”

He went on to call her a “beautiful chick” and assure the audience that their marriage hadn’t ended because of infidelity.

“No, the thing I’m trying to get across is, we’re the very best of friends, and we always have been,” he said. “Our divorce came about not because of another man or another woman but because of the circumstances involving my career. I was gone too much.”

He went on to say that he didn’t think their arrangement was fair to Priscilla and implied that it was his decision to end the marriage.

“So I therefore, as decently as you can do that type of thing, we just made an agreement to always be friends and to be close and care — ‘cause we have a daughter to raise — and for her to have whatever she wanted as a settlement.”

Elvis then discussed the expensive gifts they gave each other after the divorce.

She shared how she knew she had to leave the marriage

Elvis’ words were not exactly the truth. While part of the reason his marriage ended was his long stretches of time away from home, Priscilla grew sick of the way he treated her. As she threw herself into new activities and began to mature, she realized she felt trapped and unequal in her marriage.

“I was seeing myself for the first time, and it was going to take a while for me to get used to the image,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I had a chance to observe marriages outside our inner circle, where the woman had just as much say as a man in everyday decisions and long term goals.”

Infidelity also played a role in their divorce. Elvis cheated on Priscilla all throughout their relationship with a variety of women. She also became involved with her karate instructor, Mike Stone, towards the end of her marriage. 

Priscilla also decided to leave Elvis, much to his disbelief. After a show in Las Vegas, he called her up to his suite where he, as she described it, “forcefully” had sex with her. That moment made her realize she had to leave him.

“‘This is probably the most difficult thing I’m ever going to have to say.’ I took a long pause, hardly able to get the words out,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “‘I’m leaving.’” 

She explained that it took Elvis some time to accept what she was saying.

“Are you out of your mind?” he asked her. “You have everything any woman can want. You can’t mean that, Sattnin.”

Eventually, though, he accepted what she was saying and they parted ways.

Priscilla Presley said Elvis’ speech shocked her 

As Elvis talked to the audience about his divorce, Priscilla could hardly believe what she was hearing. She didn’t think it was like her ex-husband to go on in such detail about his personal life.

“I was in shock,” she said. “Because [in the past] he would never, ever let on to the audience what his emotions were. You know, singing was always his way of venting his emotions, how he felt about something — and he’d get onstage and sing his heart out … This was [so] out of character, for someone who had so much pride, you know — everything he was against, he was displaying. It was like watching a different person.”