Priscilla Presley Said Elvis Changed for the Worse When He Left the Army
Elvis Presley met the future Priscilla Presley when he was in the army. Elvis was stationed in Germany, where Priscilla lived on the military base with her family. At the time, Priscilla was only a freshman in high school, but he still pursued a relationship with her. After he returned to the United States, Priscilla flew to Los Angeles to visit him. She said she noticed a definite change in him.
Priscilla Presley said Elvis changed when he left the army
When Elvis moved back to the United States, he remained in sporadic communication with Priscilla. Eventually, though, he invited her to visit him in California. While she was happy to see him, she noticed a change in him.
“I couldn’t help noticing that there had been a slight change in Elvis,” she told People. “He’d left Germany a gentle, sensitive, and insecure boy; through the course of the evening, I’d see that he now was mischievous and self-confident to the point of cockiness.”
She also noticed his temper flaring more frequently than ever before.
“He also seemed quick to anger,” she said. “When a girl cautioned him to watch out for a glass that was perched precariously on the edge of the pool table, he shot her a dirty look, as if to tell her, ‘Move the glass yourself.’”
Still, Priscilla tried not to let this worry her.
Priscilla felt devastated when she said goodbye to him
She was so happy to see him because his departure from Germany had left her devastated. She dreaded his return to the United States.
“It was March 1, 1960, the night before Elvis was to leave Germany to return to the States,” she said. “We were lying on his bed, our arms around each other. I was in a state of complete despair.”
Priscilla said she cried without ceasing.
“That night our lovemaking was especially passionate,” she said. “Would I ever see him again, be in his arms the way I had been nearly every night for the past six months? I could not bear the thought of the night ending and us saying goodbye for what I thought would be the last time. I wept and wept.”
After he left, she was despondent for days.
“For the two days after Elvis left, I locked myself in my room, unable to eat, unable to sleep,” she said. “Finally, I forced myself to go to school and found myself swamped by reporters and photographers.”
It didn’t help that she soon heard reports that he was involved with other women.
The Beatles also thought Elvis Presley’s time in the Army changed him
Priscilla wasn’t the only person who noticed a change in Elvis after his time in the Army. The Beatles, who had been longtime fans of his music, thought it had negatively impacted him.
“Up until [then] I thought it was beautiful music,” John Lennon said, per The Beatles Anthology. “But after he went into the army, I think they cut ‘les bollocks’ off. They not only shaved his hair off; I think they shaved between his legs, too.”
Lennon believed Elvis never reestablished the artistry that made him a star.
“Elvis really died the day he joined the army,” he said. “That’s when they killed him, and the rest was a living death.”
Paul McCartney agreed. While he wasn’t quite as harsh as his bandmate, he didn’t like Elvis’ new image.
“I always thought [his time in the military] ruined Elvis,” Paul said in the book Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “We liked Elvis’ freedom as a trucker, as a guy in jeans and swivelin’ hips, but didn’t like him with the short haircut in the army calling everyone ‘sir.’”
Still, they looked forward to meeting Elvis in 1965, years after he left the army.
