Elvis’ Father ‘Never Had Much Respect’ for His Entourage
Elvis Presley was close with his father, Vernon, but he relied more on his entourage. The musician rarely went anywhere without his friends and employees. Even Priscilla Presley said she hadn’t married a man; she’d married a group of people. Vernon Presley never fully trusted these men, though. He believed that Elvis’ entourage was taking advantage of him.
Elvis’ father thought the musician’s entourage was taking advantage of him
Elvis’ entourage was made up of his friends, but he relied on them and paid them for their work. Priscilla admitted that the salary was not very high, but Elvis made up for it in other ways.
“They’d ask him if he could help them out with a down payment on a house or the first and last months’ payments on an apartment,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “Elvis always came through for them, lending them the one thousand or five thousand or ten thousand dollars they asked for. He was rarely if ever paid back.”
Elvis also gave them generous presents often. Vernon, who had always been careful with his money, resented this. He felt that the entourage was taking advantage of Elvis for his money.
“Vernon didn’t have much respect for the guys,” Priscilla wrote. “He said Elvis just gave and gave and gave, and they took and took and took. He’d say, ‘Son, we have to save.’ Elvis would answer, ‘It’s only money, Daddy. I just have to go out and make more.'”
Vernon believed that these people were not Elvis’ real friends. In his eyes, they liked treating Graceland like “their personal club” and asking for money. Elvis always brushed his father off, though.
Elvis’ father shuddered at the amount of money he spent on his entourage
On more than one occasion, Vernon asked Elvis to stop spending so much money on his entourage. After the musician bought a ranch, he installed trailers and trucks for each member of his entourage.
“He continued spending money as if it were going out of style,” Priscilla wrote. “Alarmed, Vernon literally begged him to stop, but Elvis said, ‘I’m having fun, Daddy, for the first time in ages. I’ve got a hobby, something I look forward to gettin’ up in the mornin’ for.'”
Several years later, Vernon told Elvis that if he kept spending so much money on his entourage, he would go bankrupt. Elvis reacted angrily, storming out of the house and taking a days-long trip without announcing where he was going.
Lisa Marie Presley expressed similar sentiments years later
Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, also had a problem with his entourage. She didn’t think they had been true friends to him because of their willingness to appear in a special about him.
“I couldn’t believe they were trying to take his dignity — Sonny West, Marty Lacker, Red West, all these people that were worse than him,” she told Rolling Stone in 2003, adding, “They scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, too. I remember seeing the Playboys, the drugs, the women — I watched it all, and I watched them. I know the real story behind all of them, and I know what they’re out there doing.”
She believed they would have refused to appear in the special if they cared about Elvis.
