“You lived his life. You honestly didn’t have your own life,” the ex-wife to the legendary musician and performer says of her former marriage to Elvis Presley and his lifestyle.
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10 years older than her, Priscilla Presley first met Elvis when she was just a teenager living on a U.S. military base in West Germany. At that time, Elvis had already become a worldwide sensation and his music had swept across radio waves like wildfire.
It was during his time of service in the U.S. Army that he and Priscilla met on the West German base. At just 14-years-old, Priscilla was completely taken by his suave attitude, charming personality, and devilish good looks.
Tom Jones, Priscilla and Elvis 1969 #music #musichistory pic.twitter.com/sscTFStGgi
— Michael Gigandet (@Motobec810) January 6, 2019
Later, at 21, Priscilla and Elvis tied the knot and began charting the next stage of their life in a marriage that would last but six years. Upon her relocation to his Memphis estate, Graceland, she discovered things were much different than she had imagined.
“Moving into Graceland, he already had his inner circle,” Priscilla confessed to the U.K. daytime talk show, Loose Women. “Of course they embraced me, but I never realized that that was it. We didn’t go out. He didn’t like eating in restaurants because people would take pictures of him and he didn’t want to be shot…putting a fork in his mouth.“
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Elvis was, and likely will always be, the love of her life, but Priscilla became lost living in “his life”. There were hoops she made herself jump through so that she could maintain a certain amount of mystery in their life, a thing she referred to as “mystique”. She revealed to the talk show that ‘The King’ never once witnessed her without makeup on or while she was getting ready.
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“There are things you keep to yourself,” Priscilla explained to the show hosts. “He never wanted to see me getting dressed. He wanted to see the result of getting dressed.”
Completely involved in the somewhat secluded life of Elvis, Priscilla opens up about how she was able to secure friends of her own, and what kind of life that allowed her to have.
Elvis and Priscilla Presley with friend, Gary Pepper, at their second wedding reception held at Graceland May 29 1967 pic.twitter.com/wLsOpzxyva
— King Of Rock N Roll (@KingORockNRoll) May 17, 2015
“I was with the wives of his friends,” She says, explaining the close friends she kept at the time. “They were pretty much chosen for me. And I got along with them very well – especially a couple of them.”
Although she loved Elvis to the ends of the earth, much of the seclusion and lonely life she led by his side became too great for her.
Elvis and Priscilla at Graceland, with life-size nativity scene behind them… #ElvisXmas@MartyJay2 pic.twitter.com/VCKQjhSbxz
— Gina Holmes (@GinaBabyTCB) December 16, 2015
In the end, Priscilla says that she had gotten lost living solely in his world, doing everything about and for his needs. She says that she was unable to have a life as a “normal girl” and these bumps all contributed to her decision to leave him.
“As a woman, I didn’t really know who I was,” Priscilla confesses of their divorce. “I realized that ‘I don’t know who I am’….my likes were his likes.
She continued explaining precisely why she chose to leave, adding “I did not divorce him because I didn’t love him – he was the love of my life. If anything I left because I needed to find out what the world was like…”
Watch this eye-opening interview in the video below.