Priscilla Presley had a lot of thoughts about late daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s brief marriage to Michael Jackson — and none of them were good.
“I was appalled by the marriage. I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty,” Priscilla, now 80, wrote in her new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, released on Tuesday, September 23. “The King of Pop was allying himself with the King of Rock and Roll. I didn’t believe he loved her.”
Priscilla theorized that Jackson “desperately needed good publicity,” which is why he married Lisa Marie.
“It was one thing to legally fight the child molestation charges against him. There was no way to come out of that looking good,” Priscilla wrote. “But photos of him with Elvis’s daughter wearing the huge diamond engagement ring he’d had made for her? That image was pure gold.”
Lisa Marie met Jackson when she was a young girl before they reconnected in 1993. Their relationship began the following year, and by May 1994, they were married. Their divorce was finalized in 1996.
“Michael had started reaching out to her when the child abuse charges went public. I think that’s how he hooked her in the beginning,” Priscilla recalled. “She felt sorry for him, and naturally, she believed in his innocence. Nobody wants to believe those kinds of allegations against someone they know.”
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson pose at The Chateau de Versailles on September 5, 1994 in Paris, France. Stephane Cardinale/Sygma via Getty Images
Jackson was first accused of child sexual abuse in 1993, which he vehemently denied until his death at age 50 in 2009. (Jackson was arrested and charged with child molestation in 2003, but he was found not guilty two years later.)
When the allegations first went public, Priscilla claimed that Lisa Marie was “gradually drawn in” by Jackson.
“Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it,” she wrote, noting that Lisa Marie did not see Jackson’s “childlike innocence” as a “warning sign.”
Priscilla, meanwhile, had a “bizarre” relationship with her then-son-in-law. She wrote about going to a dinner at Lisa Marie’s house with Jackson.
“I was prepared to be pleasant, but he wanted nothing to do with me. He stayed as far away from me as possible. In fact, he stayed far away from all the adults,” she recalled. “He continued to go to great lengths to avoid me.”
Their only “actual contact” came at an Elvis Presley tribute concert in Memphis. Jackson attended “unexpectedly,” which Priscilla took as “another publicity stunt.” Priscilla met up with Lisa Marie at a hotel before the event —but Jackson “didn’t come out” to greet her.
“A few minutes after I arrived, the door down the hall opened, and Michael popped out,” she wrote. “He grabbed his hat off the table where he’d left it, sort of smiled, and then popped back in the room and shut the door. He said nothing to me on the way to the show.”
According to Priscilla, there was “no opportunity” to talk to him at the show. “Early the next morning, he was gone,” she added, noting that was the “sum total” of interactions she had with Jackson during his marriage to Lisa Marie.
