Elvis’ Aunt Spent Christmas Calling His Entourage Freeloaders Who Only Wanted His ‘Damn Money’
On Christmas in 1975, Elvis Presley took his friends and family up in his private plane. He spent much of Christmas Eve sulking in his room after a dream that his friends only liked him for his money. His Aunt Delta seemed to have the same concerns about Elvis’ entourage. She began to scold them for using her nephew for his money.
Elvis Presley’s aunt began to scold his entourage on Christmas
While on Elvis’ private plane, the Lisa Marie, Elvis handed out jewelry to everyone as gifts. As this happened, a drunk and disgruntled Delta turned her attention on Elvis’ friend, Marty Lacker.
“She was drunk,” Lacker said, per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. “All of a sudden, Delta looked at me and she said, ‘You’re a sonofab****. I don’t like you. You ain’t no damn friend of his. And I got a good mind to take this .38 I got in my purse and shoot you dead.'”
She turned to T.G. Sheppard next and continued to insult the rest of the entourage.
“She said, ‘And you ain’t worth a s*** either, you walleyed sonofab****,'” Lacker recalled. “And she just kept on. She said, ‘All you sonsofb****es are here for the same thing. You want his damn money. Here’s this goddamn jeweler, and Elvis has to buy you some of his crap.'”
Elvis’ friend had to convince him not to throw his aunt out on Christmas
Though Delta technically stood up for Elvis, he did not take kindly to her outburst. He kicked her off the plane and apologized to everyone. Hours later, he was still furious.
“[I heard] the damndest racket there ever was,” his cousin Billy Smith said. “I jumped up and grabbed my gun, and I run to the door. Well, it was Elvis. He had his cane and was beating the door on my trailer. His hair was messed up, and he was wild-eyed and red-faced … He was out of his mind he was so mad.”
Elvis wanted to kick Delta out of Graceland, where she lived. Smith managed to talk him down, though.
“I said, ‘Elvis, let’s sit down and talk this thing out. This is an old woman you’re talking about. You know how she is when she gets to drinking.'”
Eventually, Elvis realized Delta had no other place to go. He agreed to let her stay even though he was still upset.
“But then he broke down and started crying,” Smith said. “He said, ‘She had no right to do that. Those are my friends. I love her, too, but she’s got no right to make me look like that.'”
Lisa Marie Presley also clashed with Aunt Delta
Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie also clashed with Delta. After Elvis’ death, Priscilla Presley planned to open Graceland to the public. Delta talked poorly about her because of this, and Lisa Marie overheard.
“We found out later that, after overhearing Aunt Delta say those things, Lisa had confronted her and then gotten into an argument with her and yelled, ‘You don’t like anybody, you just cuss them out behind their back,'” Graceland maid Nancy Rooks wrote in the book Inside Graceland: Elvis’ Maid Remembers. “As with most family squabbles, things were back to normal within a few days and the incident was soon forgotten.”
Still, Rooks believed Lisa Marie didn’t like spending the night at Graceland after Elvis’ death because she never felt entirely comfortable around Delta.
