Priscilla Presley Voiced Her Position On Abortion, Released Elvis Rumors, and Confessed Why She Always Distrusted Michael Jackson

Priscilla Presley’s Confession

In her forthcoming memoir, Priscilla Presley states that Elvis had once urged her to terminate their daughter, Lisa Marie, pregnancy. These are just a few of the surprising disclosures that the octogenarian reveals in her latest work, Softly, As I Leave You, which is published Tuesday and Page Six got a hold of it.
In addition to that, the ex-Dallas actress reminisces about the tough times she had with Lisa Marie after the passing of Elvis in August 1977. She mentions her daughter as being “so broken” at the time Elvis left her.

Reflections on Lisa Marie

Priscilla, in her memoir, admits that she brought Lisa Marie into the Church of Scientology, but she now calls herself “naive” regarding the controversial religion.
She also describes her daughter’s lengthy battle with money and addiction, disclosing that Lisa was so deranged that she was allowed to take 80 pills a day at a time, before her death at the age of 54 in January 2023.
“My daughter was a mystery, complicated and difficult,” says Priscilla. “Lisa was a free spirit, a strong-willed and untiring soul.”
As Lisa carried the heaviness of her name, she went to the extent of calling her public persona “Lisa Marie F—ing Presley”. To explain: “It was a character that both fascinated and troubled her the rest of her life,” says Priscilla.

A Difficult Beginning

Elvis and Priscilla first met in Germany. She was just a little 14 years old, and he was a 24-year-old U.S. Army man. In 1967 two of them tied the knot, however, after their wedding, Priscilla got the news that she was pregnant only a few weeks.
“Our wedding had symbolized that I could finally be out there,” she remembered. “I was very thrilled, but right on the wedding night when I got pregnant, those visions became a thing of the past. Neither Elvis nor I were prepared for a baby.”
She acknowledged that the doubt dominated their mood. “For weeks, Elvis and I were anxiously thinking without saying a word what would happen next. At my lowest moment, I even pondered over how I would react if a mishap caused a miscarriage. I felt so bad that I was brave enough to have these thoughts.”

Parenthood and Painful Memories

Priscilla reminisces about Elvis times when he asked her if she would have an abortion, saying that he would support whatever decision she made. “His words were a shock to my system,” she describes. “I felt the whole thing rampaging inside me and I started to tear. I told him, ‘No! We can’t do that. This is our baby!'”
Priscilla asserts that the birth of Lisa Marie in February 1968 was the time when she and Elvis “became totally smitten with her,” she and Elvis “fell completely in love with her.”

The Breakdown of a Marriage

But, their marriage was not long before it went to pieces. Priscilla, after starting a relationship with her karate instructor, Mike Stone, left Elvis when Lisa Marie was 4, although she still insists that the affair was not the cause of her leaving.
She indicates that Elvis shockingly ‘raped’ her forcibly when he found out about the relationship, in a terrible mock performance of how he thought a karate master would act. The event, according to Priscilla, resulted in her “sad memory of my last sexual experience with Elvis.”

Life After Leaving Elvis

Elvis, who was unfaithful to Priscilla on numerous occasions, was so upset about her affair that he asked his good friend Joe Esposito to find a killer to do away with Mike Stone – however, he was later convinced to get a grip on his anger.
“Though it was very hard, I never regretted my choice to leave Elvis. But I always stayed sorry for it,” Priscilla said.
She acknowledged that parenting was not smooth sailing either. “Raising my daughter was a challenge for both of us. She was very determined from the beginning. She was just like her dad. Lisa was very independent, and being the daughter of Elvis only made her stronger.”

Lisa’s Troubled Teen Years

Priscilla shared that Lisa frequently had difficulties at school and used the notoriety of their family to her advantage by saying, “I am Lisa Presley. My father is Elvis Presley!… So watch it!”
When she was growing up, Lisa became more and more “obsessed” with the boys. Priscilla remembered that when Lisa was 14, “the world as I knew it fell apart.”
Right after a trip, Priscilla said that Lisa told her that her mother’s boyfriend, actor Michael Edwards, had gone into her room and lifted her bedcovers to have a look at her. Although Lisa said he didn’t touch her, Priscilla immediately issued the order to Edwards to leave. She found out four years later that he had written a book in which he confessed to being sexually obsessed with her daughter, which broke her heart.

Conflicting Stories and No Closure

Priscilla said that Lisa’s claim 40 years later was totally unexpected. In her posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, which was published in December 2024, Lisa states that Michael Edwards sexually molested her. Edwards has denied the allegations.
“I was really helped to improve the presentation of a very minor incident with Lisa Marie in my 1980s memoir,” Edwards told Page Six. “I don’t know why these stories are used to sell books, but the idea that I molested Lisa Marie is just a lie.”
Priscilla says that Lisa’s story to her was “very different” than the one in her book.
“I found it difficult to come to terms with what Lisa had said,” Priscilla writes. “Because it was hard to believe her words until after her death, we never had the chance to discuss it together. I know that I will never have closure.”

Lisa’s Marriages and Michael Jackson

At the time Lisa was 25 and took over her father’s estate, she was already married to musician Danny Keough and a mother to Riley and Benjamin. However, after that marriage ended, the next relationship of hers left Priscilla very upset.
Priscilla confessed that she was ‘shocked’ when Lisa got married to Michael Jackson in May 1994, just a short time after the singer was charged with molesting children.
‘I did not think he loved her,’ Priscilla said, pointing out that she had only met Jackson once. ‘He married her when he needed very bad press to give a positive portrayal of him as a charming heterosexual man.’’

Divorce and Financial Struggles

Priscilla thought about Lisa’s relationship with Michael Jackson and remembered: “It was something totally different to battle the child molestation accusations against him. No way to end up being the good guy in that mess. But pictures of Elvis’s daughter wearing the enormous diamond engagement ring that he had made for her? That photo was simply pure gold.”
Apart from that, Lisa just destroyed her marriage less than three years after it was held. On January 18, 1996, Priscilla said: “I experienced the feeling as if Elvis was breathing out a big sigh of relief.” Michael Jackson passed away in 2009. Five years before, Lisa was extremely in a dire financial position with the bank.” She racked up 85 percent of the money she was left with, but the famous house in Memphis, Graceland, belonged to the family.

Addiction and Heartbreak

Third husband, guitarist Michael Lockwood, his twins daughters, Finley and Harper their marriage and birth respectively in October 2008, Lisa Marie found her way to happiness. However, according to Priscilla, her delight was quite brief as her daughter got addicted to opioids that were prescribed to her after giving birth.
“Lisa had inherited Elvis’s vulnerability to opioid addiction and was addicted by the time she left the hospital,” Priscilla said.
By 2014, “the problem had gone way beyond painkillers,” as Lisa started taking opioids and eventually she was mixing cocaine with high volumes of alcohol which prompted her to get her first rehab entry,” the mother explained.
The singer’s substance abuse issues impacted her marriage and during Lisa’s 2016 divorce, Priscilla claimed that she was “shocked” when the disclosure of her daughter’s drug use in court filings was so extensive that it became public.”

Losing Lisa

I wasn’t aware that she was poisoning herself so much,” Priscilla confessed. For some time, she was the caretaker for Lisa’s twin daughters, but the girls stayed with their mother after twelve months.
At that time, she still observed the gradual decay of Lisa. “From the moment Lisa had filed for divorce, she had been going downhill gradually. The disappearance of my daughter was accompanied by the emergence of a new woman – a woman I had never met. She was no longer my Lisa Marie. Her drugs consumption reached to 80 pills a day.”
Trying to keep hold of her children, Lisa was living that “tornado of drug-fueled emotions with no escape.”

A Fractured Bond

Matters worsened when Lisa got very angry with Priscilla because she did not want to go to court, testify, and support the allegations that Michael Lockwood was an unfit father. Eventually, Lisa got the twins, while Lockwood was given the right of visitation.
“I knew that it was no use to argue with her. It would be like arguing with her addiction,” Priscilla says. “I also knew with a stab to my heart that she would never fully forgive me. And she never did. I was losing one of the two people I loved the most. I didn’t know yet that I would soon lose her forever. The events that were poisoning our lives would turn out to be lethal.”

The Beginning of the End

Priscilla states in her writing that the passing of Lisa Marie’s child, Benjamin, to self-harm when he was 27 in July 2020 has become “the beginning of the end for my daughter.” She goes on, “With Lisa, we were all aware that our time was limited.”
On January 10, 2023, after Priscilla and Lisa attended the Golden Globes to celebrate Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvis, Lisa’s condition had deteriorated to such an extent that Jerry Schilling, a family friend, had to physically support her.
At that time, Lisa informed her mother that she had a stomach ache and made an early exit from the awards ceremony. “I didn’t realize it was the last hug,” Priscilla recalled.

A Final Goodbye

Only 48 hours from the time Lisa’s son, Riley, had come to see her at the hospital, Danny discovered his ex-wife, Lisa, lying on the floor, unresponsive. He then returned to Priscilla saying, “When I first got to Lisa’s room, it was very clear that she wasn’t there.”
Medical professionals concluded that Lisa had a heart attack as a result of a small bowel obstruction — an unfortunate chain of events from previous weight loss surgery.
Her little wild child, I love you forever. Priscilla ends her memoir with a sad, tearful goodbye: “My little wild child, I love you forever.”