Almost 50 years after his death, and despite an acrimonious divorce five years earlier, Priscilla Presley still wears a piece of jewellery Elvis gave her during their marriage.
Presley has just released a book about the King of rock and roll, who died in 1977.
Unlike her first book, Elvis and Me, her second book, Softly as I Leave You: Life After Elvis, talks about her life after her divorce but still includes enough titbits about Elvis to keep readers enthralled.
today, according to People, Presley, 80, reveals in the book that she still wears one of the many pieces of jewellery he gave her during their short-lived marriage, while also revealing his “gentle and tender” side – something rarely portrayed in recent years.
“With me, he was usually gentle and often tender. He was also extremely generous,” she reportedly writes.
“He bought me beautiful things, expensive gifts, amazing jewellery.
“I still wear the diamond cross he gave me.
“I had much to be grateful for in my marriage.”
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Priscilla was just 14 when she first met the rock star in Germany in 1959.
He was a decade older and stationed there after being drafted to the army while Priscilla’s father was a senior member of the military.
After meeting at a rave, they began a courtship but it was cut short when he returned to the US, with Priscilla following him soon after and setting up home in Graceland while she finished her schooling.
He proposed on Christmas Eve, 1966, and the two married the following May when she was 21 and he was 32.
She touched on the impact of their age difference in the book.
“The problem, of course, was that as I grew into adulthood, the power imbalance created by the age gap with Elvis remained,” she wrote, per People.
“It was difficult for us to have a marriage of equals when Elvis was used to being in charge.
“I did my best to meet all of his expectations,” she said, adding his behaviour “fit the standards of the time”.
“In many ways, he was a good husband. He never abused me, physically or emotionally. Though his temper could be explosive, he rarely exploded at me,” she said.
Just nine months after their marriage, the couple welcomed their only child together, Lisa Maria, on February 1, 1968.
Priscilla told the US Today show earlier this week the performer’s constant infidelities put a strain on their marriage, adding girls would “go and meet Elvis” at their second home in Palm Springs on weekends while he was doing his residency in Las Vegas.
“He would come home great and wonderful. He was still a good husband, but it was just too many of us,” she said.
In the end, Priscilla embarked on her own affair with her karate teacher Mike Stone and in February 1972, decided to leave the marriage.
They divorced later that year.
In her book, Priscilla has also shared new details about life after her divorce, including an incident during her relationship with Robert Kardashian, the former husband of Kris Jenner and father of their four children, including Kim Kardashian.
She recalled in the book that she was in bed with Kardashian, who was sound asleep, when Presley phoned her at 2am.
While they were divorced at the time, she wrote that Elvis would “have gone ballistic, maybe literally, if he’d known Robert was in my bedroom”, according to USA Today, adding “Elvis always carried a loaded gun, sometimes more than one”.
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After the two spoke, she said she got back into bed and neither Elvis nor Kardashian knew about the call.
The two dated from 1975 to 1976 before she broke it off, knowing he was thinking about marriage.
“I wasn’t ready to marry again,” she wrote, per USA Today.
“Robert was a sweet man, and I liked him [but he] had a demanding job as an attorney, working long hours five days a week.
“By the time the weekend rolled around, all he wanted was a quiet night at home with popcorn and a good movie. It was fine at first, but I gradually grew restless.”
The two broke up and Kardashian went on to marry Kris Jenner, with whom he shared four children.
Presley died on August 16, 1977. He was 42.
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