Priscilla Presley vividly recounts the moment she discovered Elvis’s infidelity through letters from other women: “It just ate me up.
Priscilla Presley said she learned about her ex-husband Elvis Presley’s many affairs through letters women sent to the rock ‘n’ roll legend. She told the “An Evening with Priscilla Presley” event in Mashantucket, Connecticut, on Saturday, per People, that she discovered her then-husband was cheating when she found a letter from a woman who said she had “the best time” with him while he was on the road. “When I found that letter, it just ate me up,” she recalled, without specifying when the incident happened.
She said she was so hurt by the letter that she called her husband, who was on tour in Vegas at the time, but the singer’s manager, Joe Esposito, took the call. “I said, ‘Joe, I need to talk to Elvis, please.’ He said, ‘He’s sleeping, what do you need? Is everything OK?’ I said, ‘No, not really. I just really need to talk to him,'” she said before telling Esposito about the letter. When Elvis eventually called her back, he accused her of snooping, which she denied. “No, I just opened up the mailbox and there were these letters in there,” she said.
“He wasn’t happy about that, but I wasn’t happy either. That made me realize that things go on,” she said. “Listen, there was him and four or five of his guys who were always together, so they’re men, right? And they were all married and they were all fooling around.” The pair first met in 1959 when she was 14 and he was 24. She told a Venice Film Festival press conference in 2023 that the star “respected” their age gap and they didn’t have sex until she was older. Priscilla and Elvis Presley married in 1967 after she turned 21, but the pair separated in 1972 after they both had affairs.
According to the divorce settlement papers that were publicized when they were sold in an online auction in 2017, Elvis signed over his famous 1971 Mercedes Benz, 1969 Cadillac Eldorado, Harley-Davidson motorbike, and $100,000 to his ex-wife during the divorce. She also received half the income from selling three of their properties in California, according to the document.
Their relationship received new scrutiny in the past year after the release of the Sofia Coppola-directed biopic “Priscilla” last year, earning just over $32 million at the worldwide box office, according to Box Office Mojo. The 2023 movie, which is based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir “Elvis and Me,” depicted Elvis Presley as an abusive, controlling lover.