Priscilla Presley Said She Always Ended Up Apologizing to Elvis When She Suspected He Was Cheating

From the start of Priscilla Presley’s relationship with Elvis Presley, she worried that he was cheating on her. He had been in a relationship with another woman when he met Priscilla, and she consistently saw rumors about his flings with co-stars. These rumors persisted throughout their relationship. Though Priscilla would confront him about it, she explained that she always ended up apologizing for it.

Priscilla Presley apologized to Elvis after questioning him about cheating

While visiting the Palm Springs home she shared with Elvis, Priscilla discovered letters from a number of women who had “obviously been to the house.” Outraged, Priscilla called Elvis’ road manager, Joe Esposito, and demanded that he put Elvis on the phone.

“When Joe said Elvis was sleeping, I told him about the letters and insisted I speak to Elvis,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “Joe promised that he would have Elvis call as soon as he woke up.”

Elvis did call her back, but it was clear he’d had enough time to think of an excuse.

“He was totally innocent, the girls were just fans, they were out of their minds if they said they’d ever come to the house, and besides, it was their word against his. As usual, in the end I apologized for putting him on the spot, but things at this point were becoming too obvious.”

He sent her away amid rumors of cheating

Part of the reason Priscilla was quick to apologize was that Elvis had punished her for confronting him in the past. When a news story said that Elvis had proposed to his co-star Ann-Margret Olsson — with whom he was actually having an affair — he sent Priscilla back to Memphis.

On another occasion, Priscilla mentioned setting up a lunch with his co-star Shelley Fabares. Elvis felt this was overstepping on her part and threatened to send her back to her parents’ home.

“I don’t have a goddamn thing to hide,” he said. “You’re getting a little too aggressive and demanding. It might be a good idea if you visited your parents for a while.”

He threw Priscilla’s clothes into a suitcase and told an employee to buy her a flight. As she walked out the door, crying, he stopped her and told her he hadn’t been serious.

“I was relieved and happy to be back in his arms,” she wrote. “Anything he’d have said would have made sense to me in that moment. What I didn’t realize until later was that this was Elvis’s technique of keeping me under control.”

Elvis insisted on loyalty from Priscilla Presley and his other girlfriends

Despite Elvis’ constant cheating, he spoke often about how much loyalty meant to him. 

“Fidelity was very important to him, especially on the woman’s part,” Priscilla wrote. “He constantly reminded me that his girl had to be completely constant.”

Priscilla explained that despite Elvis’ constant “moralizing” about fidelity, she doubted he was loyal to her.