Priscilla Presley has been candid about her disapproval of Lisa Marie Presley‘s relationship with Michael Jackson, saying their brief marriage in the ’90s “appalled” her.
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The late Lisa Marie, the only daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, married Jackson in 1994, and the two remained married for around two years, finalising their divorce in August 1996.
In her upcoming memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla recalled asking Lisa Marie, who died at the age of 54 in 2023, if she and Jackson “had a physical relationship”, according to an excerpt published by The Sun.
“Like so many people, I wasn’t sure,” she wrote. “She said yeah. I was appalled by the marriage. I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty.”
In Lisa Marie’s own posthumous memoir, From Here To The Great Unknown, she claimed that he was “still a virgin” when they began dating, at which time Jackson was around 35 years old.
Priscilla went on to claim Jackson saw a relationship with Lisa Marie as “good publicity” amid accusations of sexual abuse that first emerged a year before their marriage.
In 1993, Evan Chandler, a dentist and screenwriter based in Los Angeles, accused Jackson of sexually abusing his 13-year-old son Jordan. The case was concluded when the two parties reached a financial settlement in 1994.
In 2013, four years after Jackson’s death, the choreographer Wade Robson filed a lawsuit against his estate, saying Jackson had sexually abused him between the ages of seven and 14. Another man, the former child actor James Safechuck, also came forward with allegations. Jackson’s estate has continuously denied all allegations of sexual abuse made against him.
“Michael was a manipulative man,” Priscilla continued. “And I think he had his sights set on her long before she realised it. The childlike innocence he projected was part of his public mask.”
When the two eventually divorced, Priscilla recalled that she “could practically hear Elvis sigh with relief”.
In January, Lisa Marie’s daughter, Daisy Jones & The Six star Riley Keough, revealed she was “never told anything” about the abuse allegations that emerged against Jackson throughout his marriage to Lisa Marie.
“The way my parents parented was very much, ‘We don’t fight around the kids, we don’t ever say anything around them,’” she explained. “We didn’t know anything. We didn’t know about any allegations. We had no awareness of that.”
When asked how she felt about that part of her life now, Keough said: “The one thing I know is that they were in love, and that their love for one another was genuine, because I was there and I remember. Everything else, I don’t know, because I wasn’t there.”
Following Lisa Marie’s passing, Jackson’s estate shared a statement saying “Michael cherished the special bond they enjoyed” and described their union as “full of genuine affection and care for each other”.