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Lisa Marie Presley was visiting her father, Elvis Presley, in Aug. 1977 when he died of an apparent heart attack. Lisa spent the summer at Graceland, Elvis’ Memphis home, and was scheduled to return to Los Angeles for school. However, just before her world changed forever, the king of rock and roll visited his only daughter to say goodnight. It would be the last time they spoke.

Elvis Presley and Lisa Marie Presley in side by side photos from the 1970s |
Elvis Presley and Lisa Marie Presley | Keystone/Getty Images/Pictorial Parade

Lisa Marie Presley admits Elvis wasn’t a strict parent

Speaking on CBS’ The Talk, Lisa Marie revealed that Elvis was not a strict parent. She told the show’s hosts, “He and I spent a lot of time together upstairs; the upper part of Graceland is basically his and my room. That’s when I got to be with him. He’d set up a little chair in my room and a TV.” 

Asked if Elvis was a strict father, Lisa Marie laughed: “He was not strict at all! My mom was the opposite; she was really strict.”

Lisa Marie remembered: “He would sleep all day, so me and my friends pretty much had the run of Graceland. And I knew that nobody was going to tell me what to do because they would get fired. I was truly a terror, to be honest.”

During the warmer months, Lisa generally spent her vacation with her father. During the summer of 1977, Elvis entered his daughter’s room in the early morning hours of Aug. 16, 1977, to say goodnight. It was the last time they spoke to one another.

Elvis Presley comforted Lisa Marie with these last words before his death

Lisa Marie spoke of the day her father died to Radar Online. She recalled how Elvis found her awake in her bedroom at 4 a.m. Their rooms were near one another, so he regularly checked in on his only daughter before he went to bed.

“I don’t like talking about this,” she revealed. “It was Aug. 16, at 4 am. I was supposed to be asleep. He found me, you know.”

Elvis entered Lisa Marie’s room and comforted his daughter before saying, “Go to bed,” and kissing her goodnight. Lisa Marie remembered: “That was the last time I saw him alive,”

Lisa Marie said when she awoke, she “knew something was wrong. Because I was in my room which was right next to his bathroom. So I knew that something was very wrong. All the commotion and everything. I was a wreck.”

She continued, “I was also confused because I was so upset. The pandemonium that happened afterward was a little bit confusing.”

Priscilla Presley worried how Lisa Marie would react after learning Elvis had died

Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley pose as they leave the courthouse following their divorce hearing.
Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley in Oct. 1973 | Bettmann/Getty Images
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In her memoir Elvis and Me, Priscilla discussed arriving at Graceland and finding Lisa Marie riding on her favorite toy, her golf cart, with a friend. She wrote, “At first, I was amazed that she could play at a time like this, but when I talked to her, I realized that the full impact of what happened hadn’t hit her yet.”

Priscilla shared her heartbreak over how Lisa Marie had “seen the paramedics rushing Elvis away, and he was still at the hospital when I’d arrived, so Lisa was confused.”

Elvis’ only wife wrote she was “really at a loss for words” when Lisa Marie asked if her father was “gone.” Priscilla said, “She was our child. It was difficult enough for me to believe and confront Elvis’s death myself. I didn’t know how to tell her that she would never see her daddy again.”

Priscilla continued in her memoir, “I nodded, then took her into my arms. We hugged, and then she ran out and started riding around in her golf cart again. But now I was glad she could play. I knew it was her way of avoiding reality.”

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