Elvis’ Bodyguards Broke a Singer’s Foot for Providing Elvis With Cocaine
Elvis Presley’s bodyguards knew he took a number of different medications, but they became concerned when they learned he was using cocaine. On a tour in which Elvis seemed unwell, they realized that a shipment of cocaine had arrived. When bodyguard Red West learned about it, he attacked the man who had given Elvis the drug.
Elvis’ bodyguards violently attached a musician
On a tour in the early 1970s, Elvis did not seem like himself. He stumbled while exiting a car and seemed unsteady onstage one day. The next day, he threatened to take the “kidney away from” his record producer. His friends were concerned about him and became even more so when they realized the musician had received a shipment of cocaine.
Per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick, his bodyguards Red West and Ed Parker learned the drug came from “a singer in the group that he had with him.” West learned that the singer had first introduced cocaine to Elvis several months before.
West, Parker, and Dick Grob rushed to the singer’s room. Their efforts to stop the musician from using cocaine were fruitless, however.
“I kicked in the door and broke [the singer’s] foot and told him if he ever brought any more drugs around it was going to be a lot worse,” West said. “[But] then Elvis found out about it and called us into his room and said, ‘I don’t like these bully tactics. I need [the coke].’ And I said, ‘Man, if you need it, I’m not going to say any more about it. You can have it.'”
Elvis’ bodyguards were willing to do whatever it took to protect the musician
Elvis’ bodyguards often proved they were willing to resort to violence to protect him. The musician lived in fear that someone would be able to gloat about having assassinated him. As a result, his bodyguards did whatever they felt was necessary to keep him safe.
“Sonny and Red lived in so much tension these days that they were constantly frenzied,” Priscilla Presley wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “Suspicious in crowds of overzealous fans, they were quick to respond to any sign of danger. Compared to Sonny’s diplomacy, Red’s reputation was to act first and ask questions later. Eventually, numerous assault-and-battery charges started piling up against Elvis.”
Elvis eventually had to tell West to learn to control his temper.
The musician’s maid said people were more concerned about his comfort than his health
West backed off when Elvis told him he needed the cocaine. According to Graceland maid Nancy Rooks, the people in Elvis’ life frequently did this. They were primarily concerned with appeasing Elvis.
“It’s not that so many of us were not concerned for him, it’s just that it became so routine,” Rooks wrote in her book Inside Graceland: Elvis’ Maid Remembers. “Looking back on it, I remember Aunt Delta telling me, just several months before, as we stood out by the racquetball court one morning, that she was afraid that if ‘If he doesn’t stop taking so many drugs, I’m afraid he’s going to die.’ But, even so, she continued to take him whatever medications he would ask for. We just all wanted to try and make his life as comfortable for him as we could.”
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
