Priscilla Presley Slammed Michael Jackson as ‘Manipulative’ in Relationship With Lisa Marie
Priscilla Presley married one of the biggest artists of her generation, and her daughter, Lisa Marie, did the same when she married Michael Jackson. Jackson and Lisa Marie married in 1994, shortly after finalizing her divorce from her first husband. Priscilla had concerns about the relationship. She worried that Jackson wanted Lisa Marie for her family name, not herself.
Priscilla Presley said Michael Jackson was manipulative
In 1994, Priscilla married Jackson in a secret ceremony. He was 10 years her senior, the same age gap as Priscilla and Elvis. Still, Priscilla admitted that her daughter’s relationship with Jackson “appalled” her. Jackson was a big fan of Elvis, and she thought he married Lisa Marie because of this.
“I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty,” Priscilla wrote in her book Softly, as I Leave You: Life After Elvis (via Rolling Stone). “The King of Pop was allying himself with the King of Rock & Roll. I didn’t believe he loved her.”
She described him as manipulative in the way he pursued Lisa Marie.
“Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it,” she wrote.
Priscilla Presley told Lisa Marie Presley she shouldn’t have a child with Michael Jackson
Because of her reservations about Jackson, Priscilla cautioned her daughter against having children with him.
“I didn’t trust his motives,” she wrote. “A child would be a proof of virility. And I couldn’t help wondering if he wanted to have Elvis’s grandchild.”
Lisa Marie said that Jackson wanted a child, even if she refused to have one with him.
“Michael says that if I don’t want to have a baby, Debbie Rowe will have one with him,” Priscilla recalled Lisa Marie telling her. “Oh, boy. Big red flag. Thank God, Lisa agreed with me that it was better to wait.”
She claimed that Lisa Marie later believed that Jackson hadn’t been entirely honest in his pursuit of her.
“She had begun to feel like the marriage was a setup,” Priscilla wrote. “He didn’t want to be with her; he wanted to be with Elvis Presley’s daughter. If he’d wanted to be with her, he wouldn’t have been gone for most of their marriage.”
Lisa Marie filed for divorce in 1996, after just two years of marriage.
Lisa Marie Presley compared her ex-husband to her father
Elvis and Jackson were both megastars. According to Lisa Marie, they had more in common than fame, though. She believed they both intentionally surrounded themselves with yes men.
“The one thing that correlates with Michael and with my father on this subject is that they had the luxury of creating whatever reality around them they wanted to create,” she told Oprah Winfrey (via People). “They could have the kinds of people who were going to go with their program or not go with their program. If they weren’t, then they could be disposed of.”
After their divorce, Lisa Marie married Nicholas Cage. Jackson married Rowe.
