Elvis Once Wished Priscilla Presley Would ‘Quit Bugging’ Him and Find ‘Someone Else to Mess Around With’
After several years of marriage, Elvis and Priscilla Presley rarely saw each other. According to members of his entourage, Elvis frequently spent weeks at a time on the road without seeing his wife. This worked out fine for him — he liked uninterrupted time with his friends and the opportunity to sleep around — but it bothered her greatly. When Priscilla begged Elvis to spend more time with her, he said he wished she would find a lover.
Elvis once wished Priscilla Presley would start up an affair
Elvis often performed residencies in Las Vegas. While Priscilla and the wives of entourage members initially visited their husbands in the city over the weekends, Elvis began to restrict their visits. At first, he confined them to only the opening and closing performances. Before long, he only let Priscilla visit for opening night.
There were times when he wouldn’t see her for maybe seven weeks,” bodyguard Sonny West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “How can a marriage last through that?”
Priscilla grew lonely and asked Elvis to spend more time with her and their daughter, Lisa Marie. He brushed her off and, in conversation with his friends, expressed his wish for her to leave him alone.
“I wish she would find someone else to mess around with and stop bugging me,” he told bodyguard Red West.
When Elvis eventually learned Priscilla had done just that, he realized it hadn’t been what he wanted. Red West brought it up to him when Elvis told the entourage Priscilla was having an affair. “Hell man,” he asked, “ain’t that what you wanted?”
“Not that way, man,” Elvis said. “Not that way.”
Elvis was one of the last people to know about Priscilla Presley’s affair
When Elvis informed his entourage that Priscilla was having an affair, few of them were surprised. Red West began to hear rumors from Graceland staff that Priscilla and Mike Young were spending more time with each other than anyone knew.
Sonny West caught on when he was trying to get a hold of Priscilla at Elvis’ request. She wasn’t anywhere she said she’d been. When Priscilla got home that day, he rushed out to warn her about this.
“Anyway, a little later the red light goes on in the main room of the house at Monovale Road. That meant somebody was at the gate,” he said. “I figured it was Priscilla, so I beat everyone out there so I could tell her what was going down, sort of prepare a story, I suppose. I got to the gate, poked my head inside the car window and said, ‘Elvis has been trying to find you. We called Chuck Norris’s place and there was no answer. Take it from there.’ She didn’t say anything to me, but she got the message.”
Sonny West said he didn’t want to tell Elvis about Priscilla’s infidelity because he felt for her. Elvis hadn’t been around at all.
He cheated on her constantly
The news of Priscilla’s affair stung Elvis. He didn’t want her to be unfaithful even though he cheated on her throughout their relationship. This was one of the factors that pushed Priscilla away from him.
“He wasn’t faithful, not that he had someone special, but when you’re in the entertainment business there is always that and I tried to turn my back to that, but I just didn’t want to share him. Simple as that,” she told Sunday Night, per Today. “As much as he wanted to be married and have a family, I don’t know if he was ever cut to be married because I don’t think he could ever be faithful to one woman.”
The couple divorced in 1973.
