Priscilla Presley talks about her daughter’s marriage to Michael Jackson: I was disgusted, he was manipulative

Priscilla Presley, the wife of Elvis Presley, openly admitted that she was not in favor of her daughter Lisa Marie’s relationship with musician Michael Jackson.

Lisa and Michael married in 1994, but divorced after two years.

In the book “Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis,” Priscilla admitted that she was disgusted by marriage.

 Priscilla PresleyPhoto: EPA-EFE

“I was disgusted by that marriage. I asked her if they had had a physical relationship. Like many people, I wasn’t sure. She said ‘yes,’” she wrote.

Priscilla stated that she deeply felt that Michael married not only Lisa, but the entire Presley dynasty.

According to her, Michael was a manipulator.

“Deep down I knew Michael wasn’t going to marry Lisa Marie. He was going to marry the Presley dynasty. Michael was manipulative and I think he had his eye on her long before she realized it. The childlike innocence he projected was part of his public mask,” she said.

Lisa Marie, in her posthumously published memoirs, recounted how their love began.

 Lisa and Michael

Michael confessed to her that he was in love with her and that he wanted marriage and children.

After divorcing Lisa, Michael Jackson married Debbie Rowe, with whom he had a son, Prince, and a daughter, Paris.

Before marrying Michael, Lisa Marie Presley was married to Danny Keough, with whom she has two children, daughter Riley and son Benjamin.

After divorcing Michael, she married actor Nicolas Cage, to whom she remained married for two years.

She later married Michael Lockwood, with whom she had twins Harper and Finley. Their marriage ended in divorce in 2021. Lisa Marie died in 2023 due to complications from a small intestinal blockage. 

As well as revealing more depth to her relationship with Elvis Presley and then Robert Kardashian, the book shares her true feelings about her once son in law, Michael Jackson. In her own words she labelled Jackson as “manipulative” and questioned his motives for marrying her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, as revealed by Rolling Stone.

The book, released today, picks up where her 1985 memoir Elvis and Me left off, chronicling her life after leaving the King of Rock and Roll in 1972. But it’s her assessment of Jackson that has captured attention, with Presley stating her belief that Jackson married Lisa Marie purely for publicity during his child molestation allegations.

“I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty. The King of Pop was allying himself with the King of Rock & Roll. I didn’t believe he loved her,” Priscilla writes. She describes Jackon as having “his sights set on her long before she realized it”, hinting the relationship was calculated rather than genuine.

Presley also revealed she opposed Jackson’s intention to have a child with her daughter after Lisa Marie confessed they were considering parenthood. Presley suspected Jackson’s motives were less about love and more about creating “proof of virility” and potentially having “Elvis’s grandchild”. Reportedly, Lisa Marie told her mother, “Michael says that if I don’t want to have a baby, Debbie Rowe will have one with him.”

Lisa Marie eventually filed for divorce from Jackson in January 1996, less than two years after their wedding. Lisa Marie had begun to see what her mother had already suspected, and that “if he’d wanted to be with her, he wouldn’t have been gone for most of their marriage.”

The book also details other intimate moments from Priscilla’s post-Elvis life, including her relationship with Robert Kardashian in 1975. She recalls a particularly tense moment when Elvis called at 2am whilst she was in bed with Kardashian, forcing her to take the call privately to avoid sparking Elvis’s jealousy. “Elvis always carried a loaded gun, sometimes more than one,” she wrote.