Elvis and Me

by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley

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Although Elvis much preferred to spoil Lisa, he did discipline her from time to time. Once he paddled her for writing all over a beautiful velvet couch with crayons. Then he immediately went into a panic, wanting me to assure him that he’d done the right thing and that Lisa wouldn’t hold it against him. When I told him, “If you hadn’t spanked her, I’d have,” he felt better. The only other time he touched her in anger was after we’d repeatedly warned her not to go near the pool and she did. (She remembers this well and is proudly pleased by her two paddlings.)

The training was incredibly exacting. Over and over we’d execute the same movement until perfected. Perspiration poured into my eyes and yet, if I wiped it away, it would mean one hundred pushups under the watchful eyes of the entire classroom, a humiliation I did not desire and managed to avoid.

I went upstairs, filled with curiosity, and when I arrived in the suite I found Elvis lying in bed, obviously waiting for me. He grabbed me and forcefully made love to me. It was uncomfortable and unlike any other time he’d ever made love to me before, and he explained, “This is how a real man makes love to his woman.” This was not the gentle, understanding man that I grew to love. He was under the influence, and with my personal growth and new realities he had become a stranger to me. I wept in silence as Elvis got up to dress for the show.

Finally he asked, “Have I lost you to another man?” “It’s not that you’ve lost me to another man, you’ve lost me to a life of my own. I’m finding myself for the first time.”

Then the judge was finished. The dream I had had of a perfect union was over. The hope of an ideal marriage, which had consumed all my thoughts and energy since I was fourteen, had ended with the simple stroke of a pen.

Elvis was still reading when Ginger woke up at nine o’clock that morning, and then she went back to sleep until about 1 p.m. When she awoke, Elvis was not in bed. She found him lying face down on his bathroom floor.

Ann-Margret attended with her husband, Roger Smith. Ann expressed her sympathy so sincerely I felt a genuine bond with her.

Vernon called me to his office. He was overwhelmed with grief. Did I know anything that would help him to understand why his son had died? He never fully accepted it, and I believed his pain led to his own death, just as Grandma later never recovered from Vernon’s death.