Elvis Feared Outside Influences on Priscilla Because He Didn’t Want Them to ‘Destroy His Creation’

Elvis Presley began a relationship with the future Priscilla Presley when she was just 14 years old. While he said he saw her as wise beyond her years, he also liked her youthful malleability and dependence on him. In their years together, he shaped her into his ideal woman. Eventually, though, Priscilla began to build an identity outside of Elvis. She explained that this was something he had long feared.

Elvis Presley worried about the way others might influence Priscilla Presley

All throughout their relationship, Priscilla molded herself to fit Elvis’ desire. She dressed, wore makeup, and styled her hair to his liking, spent time around the people he liked, and gave up any thought of having a career. Priscilla said he wanted to be the sole influence on her life.

“My view of life had been fashioned by Elvis,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I had entered his world as a young girl and he had provided absolute security. He distrusted any outside influences, which he saw as a threat to the relationship, fearing they would destroy his creation, his ideal.”

In the late 1960s, though, Elvis began performing residencies in Las Vegas. He had always traveled for work, but these trips put distance between them for increasingly lengthy periods.

“He could never have foreseen what was happening as the consequence of his prolonged absences from home,” she wrote. “A major period in my growth was beginning. I still feared our separations but felt that our love had no boundaries, that I was his and if he wanted me to change, I would. For years nothing had existed in my world but him, and now that he was gone for long stretches of time, the inevitable happened. I was creating a life of my own, starting to achieve a sense of security in myself, and discovering there was a whole world outside our marriage.”

He encouraged her to try a limited number of pre-approved hobbies

As Elvis performed in Vegas and spent time in Palm Springs with his entourage and, as Priscilla would eventually discover, many women, she waited at home. In previous articles, I’ve noted Elvis’ disinterest in higher education for Priscilla and outright refusal to see her get a job. These stances didn’t change as she aged. Still, he encouraged her to get out of the house.

“He said, ‘Get out and do things while I’m gone, because if you don’t, you’re going to start getting depressed.’ Although my choices were limited — he still objected to my taking a job or enrolling in classes at college — I continued my dancing and started taking private art instruction.”

Dance soon became one of Priscilla’s most cherished ways of spending her time. 

When did Elvis and Priscilla Presley divorce?

Though the cracks in their marriage had deepened in the late 1960s, Priscilla remained with Elvis until 1972. They finalized their divorce the following year. They remained constant fixtures in each other’s lives, though. Priscilla explained that she didn’t stop loving Elvis, but she needed distance to grow into her own person.

“I didn’t have my teenage years as a normal girl, obviously, so I had to adapt,” she said on Loose Women. “So I just kind of followed what he did. I mean, you lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted to see. You listened to the music he wanted to listen to, and you go to places that he would go. I honestly didn’t have my own life. … So I really kind of lost myself.”