Elvis Angrily Stopped 1 of Priscilla Presley’s ‘Few’ Friends at Graceland From Speaking to Her
Elvis Presley invited Priscilla Beaulieu to move to Memphis to be with him. While she excitedly moved to Graceland, she quickly realized that life there was lonely. Elvis was often away filming, and Priscilla wasn’t allowed to have any friends in the house. Eventually, though, she befriended some of the people around Graceland, including a member of Elvis’ Memphis Mafia. When Elvis found them speaking, he flew into a rage.
Elvis Presley didn’t want Priscilla Presley speaking to a peer at Graceland
After Priscilla graduated from high school, she spent every waking moment with Elvis, his family, and his employees. Naturally, she grew friendly with these people, but Elvis always ensured she was at a slight distance from everyone.
“Although I became friends with the guys in Elvis’ retinue, he never let me, or anyone else, forget that I was his girl,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I was never to get too close or become too familiar with any of the regulars.”
This included Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis’ employees whom Priscilla described as “warm, sincere, and very personable; just a couple years older than I, he was one of the few people whom I could relate to.” When Elvis discovered Priscilla and Schilling having a friendly conversation, he exploded in anger.
“‘Cilla, you don’t need to be roaming around here late at night,’ he said, angrily ordering me upstairs. Behind me, I could hear him lashing out at Jerry. ‘If you want to keep this job son, you mind your own business. If there’s anyone who’s going to ask her how she feels, it’ll be me. You better mind your own goddamn business.’”
Afterward, Priscilla and Schilling completely avoided one another.
The musician often worried about fidelity
Elvis’ reaction to Priscilla and Schilling’s conversation likely had something to do with his value of fidelity. He often stressed to Priscilla that he wanted full loyalty from the women he dated.
“Fidelity was very important to him, especially on the woman’s part,” Priscilla wrote. “He constantly reminded me that his girl had to be completely constant.”
While Elvis frequently discussed the value he put on loyalty, he often cheated on Priscilla. Even in the earliest stages of their relationship, she could tell he was a little too familiar with the women around him.
“Despite his moralizing, I feared Elvis wasn’t always faithful to me,” she wrote. “His bantering with some of the other girls at his house made me think that he might be intimately familiar with him.”
Priscilla Presley admitted it could be hard to work for Elvis
While Priscilla loved Elvis and felt he was generous to his employees, she acknowledged that it could be difficult to work for him.
“[W]orking for Elvis was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job, and the boys were at his beck and call constantly,” she wrote. “They played when he played and slept when he slept. It took a certain kind of personality to put up with his demands, whether they made sense or not.”
