Priscilla Presley says she was appalled by Lisa Marie Presley’s marriage to Michael Jackson and questioned rumors about their relationship, according to excerpts from her forthcoming memoir. In Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, an excerpt obtained by The Sun outlines her account of the 1990s union and the private conversations she had with her daughter amid public speculation and private doubts.
According to the memoir, Priscilla confronted Lisa Marie about rumors of a physical relationship with the pop icon nearly 30 years ago, asking, "Did you have a physical relationship?" She writes that Lisa Marie replied, "Yeah." The former wife of Elvis Presley says she was not impressed by Jackson and doubted his motives, suggesting he was more interested in the Presley name than in her daughter. "I knew in my bones that Michael wasn't marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty," she writes, describing what she believed was a calculated bid for good publicity after Jackson faced accusations of child molestation, which he vehemently denied.
Priscilla says her daughter believed Jackson was innocent, and she claims he began reaching out to Lisa Marie during the scandal. "Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it," she writes, adding that the pop icon projected a childlike innocence that formed part of his public mask. The memoir describes Jackson as someone who would frequently avoid adults at family gatherings, preferring to spend time with children.
The book also recounts a moment when Lisa Marie told her that Jackson wanted to have a baby, prompting Priscilla to urge her daughter to wait. Two years after their whirlwind romance, Lisa Marie filed for divorce, and Priscilla says she felt Elvis Presley’s presence in the room, sighing with relief at the separation. "I could practically hear Elvis sigh with relief," she remembers.
The revelations sit alongside Lisa Marie’s own posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which was compiled from tapes by her daughter Riley Keough and released in October 2024. In that work, Lisa Marie writes that Jackson told her he was still a virgin when they began dating and catalogs a string of rumored romances. She notes that he allegedly claimed interactions with Tatum O’Neal and Brooke Shields had been limited to kissing, and she references conversations about Madonna’s alleged advances, though she stresses nothing beyond kissing occurred. "I knew in my bones that Michael wasn't marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty," Lisa Marie repeats a line that has appeared in coverage of her life.
Michael Jackson died in 2009 at age 50. Lisa Marie Presley died in 2023 at age 54. At the time of her death, she was a mother to Riley Keough and Ben Keough from her first marriage to Danny Keough; she later welcomed twins Harper and Finley with fourth husband Michael Lockwood. Michael Jackson’s children—Prince and Paris, with ex-wife Debbie Rowe—and son Bigi, born via a surrogate, continued their lives after his death. The broader family history and the complex intertwining of fame, inheritance, and media scrutiny have kept the Lisa Marie–Michael Jackson story in the public eye for decades.
Priscilla’s memoir is slated for release on Sept. 23, and the excerpts published in The Sun capture a candid, sometimes pointed, account of a mother’s concerns about the pressures and potential consequences surrounding her daughter’s relationship with a figure whose public image and private life were under intense scrutiny. The notes accompanying the excerpts describe a marriage that Priscilla viewed as more of a strategic alliance than a romance, and they reflect the enduring tension within the Presley family over how Lisa Marie’s relationships were perceived by the world.
The cultural reverberations of the relationship extend beyond the couple’s own histories. Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoirs, including the one compiled by Riley Keough, illustrate how public narratives about relationships involving high-profile figures in music history can outlive the individuals involved and shape perceptions for years to come. The marriage to Jackson remains a focal point for discussions about manipulation, public perception, and the role of family dynamics in the lives of stars who carry the legacy of a famed family name.
In all, the disclosures shed light on a chapter of Lisa Marie’s life that intersected with a media era dominated by tabloid headlines and sensational headlines, while also revealing a mother’s vigilance over her daughter’s choices at a time when the Presley name carried considerable weight in popular culture. The full memoirs, and any further disclosures, will likely renew public interest in the complicated relationship between a pop icon and the Presley dynasty.