Elvis ‘Deliberately Set Out to Destroy Himself,’ Said His Bodyguard: ‘He Is Bent on Death’

In the years leading up to Elvis Presley’s death, everyone in his inner circle was worried about him. Elvis took increasing amounts of drugs to fall asleep and stay awake. While Elvis insisted he knew what he was doing, it became clear to everyone else that the situation was out of control. One of his bodyguards believed Elvis was intentionally harming himself.

Elvis seemed to be rushing toward death, said his bodyguard

By 1975, Elvis was taking copious amounts of medication to get him through the day.

“His system doesn’t work anymore like a normal human being’s. The pills do all the work for him. He is a walking pharmaceutical shop,” his bodyguard, Red West, said in the book Elvis: What Happened?, adding, “He has smoked marijuana, but he doesn’t like to smoke it because it burns his throat. He takes uppers and downers and all sorts of very strong painkillers, Percodan and the stuff they give terminal cancer patients.”

Another bodyguard, Dave Hebler, believed all these pills were slowly killing Elvis. He also believed that Elvis was aware of this.

“After getting to know the scene with Elvis, I was surprised,” he said. “It is absolute insanity that a human being would want to commit slow suicide, which I feel he is doing with the drugs. I can’t understand how anybody can deliberately set about to do himself in.”

Hebler found it tragic that Elvis had so many resources at his fingertips but was still in this position.

“Here is a guy, one of the most popular persons in the world,” he said, adding, “He can have anything he wants. He has the means. He could have been a fantastic physical specimen. It is hard for me to understand how he can deliberately set out to destroy himself. It seems he is bent on death.”

His bodyguards said Elvis was always on the go

In order to keep up with Elvis, at least to the extent that this was possible, Elvis’ entourage also took stimulants and sleeping pills. Sometimes, they had to actually hide from Elvis to get good sleep.

“Some of the time we would ask him for it, but other times we really just wanted to get some sleep, natural sleep,” bodyguard Sonny West said. “On some of those movies, while Elvis was wired and high as a kite, we would sometimes sneak away off the studio lot and go to a vacant studio and hide under props and stuff and sleep while he was before the cameras. It was the only way we could get any real sleep, because he would be going like a steam train all day and only get a few hours’ sleep. In the early days that man had a tremendous constitution. He would never stop.”

This became increasingly difficult as the years went by. Eventually, Elvis would give his entourage pills and watch them to make sure they took them.

Priscilla Presley said Elvis anticipated an early death

Like Hebler, Priscilla Presley noticed a destructive streak in Elvis. His mother died at a young age, and Elvis seemed to believe he would too. 

“In time, it became evident that he was letting his health go,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “His behavior at times was deliberately self-destructive. On a few occasions he’d say, ‘I’ll never make it much beyond forty.’ We’ve all made such statements, but with Elvis the thought was deep-seated and chronic.”

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.