Priscilla Presley Shared How She Got the Confidence to Ditch the Heavy Makeup Elvis Loved

When Priscilla Presley first began a relationship with Elvis Presley, he urged her to wear heavy eye makeup. He liked the style, and she happily went along with his request. Over the years, though, Priscilla began to develop as a person separate from her relationship with Elvis. As she grew more confident, she began to wear less makeup and glamorous clothing. 

Priscilla Presley stopped wearing as much makeup after she started taking karate lessons

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Elvis began touring and performing residencies in Las Vegas. He was often away from home. Priscilla worried about infidelity — and for good reason — so he encouraged her to find hobbies to get her mind off of it. 

At first, she picked hobbies based on Elvis’ interests. He had long practiced karate, so she began taking lessons, too. Soon, she fell in love with it.

“In the end, though, I made a whole new circle of friends with whom I felt accepted for myself,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “The martial arts gave me such confidence and assurance that I began to experience my feelings and express my emotions as never before.”

Priscilla grew more confident. She no longer felt she needed to wear heavy makeup or high-piled hair as a shield. She had found people who accepted her as she was. 

“A transformation had begun in which fear and indifference had no place,” she wrote. “Along with this new confidence, off came my false eyelashes and heavy makeup, the jewels and flashy clothes. All devices that I’d depended upon for security I now shed.”

This was a significant change for Priscilla. In the past, she had even worn her false eyelashes while giving birth. Elvis almost never saw her without makeup on because he didn’t think she looked as good without it. Her choice to go without it showed the ways in which the couple was growing apart.

Elvis had asked Priscilla Presley to wear heavy makeup for years

Long before Elvis and Priscilla were married, they took a trip to Las Vegas together. She was still a teenager and had taken the “less is more” approach to makeup and hairstyles. On their trip, Elvis changed this. 

“There’s nothing wrong with [your hair], honey,” he told her. “It’s just that this is Las Vegas. Everyone has their hair done.”

He was less kind when he told her to apply more makeup, though.

“You need to apply more makeup around your eyes,” he said. “Make them stand out more. They’re too plain naturally. I like a lot of makeup. It defines your features.”

Priscilla didn’t question this. She believed “Elvis knew best,” and would wear heavy eye makeup for years to come. If she didn’t, Elvis would send her upstairs and tell her to apply more.

Her classes helped her grow in other ways

Priscilla’s new hobbies and friends brought her increased self-confidence. They also taught her that her relationship dynamic was not normal. Elvis firmly believed that because Priscilla was a woman, her opinion mattered less than his. Suddenly, she was spending time with couples who treated each other differently. 

“I was seeing myself for the first time, and it was going to take a while for me to get used to the image,” she wrote, adding, “I had a chance to observe marriages outside our inner circle, where the woman had just as much say as a man in everyday decisions and long term goals. I was confronted with the harsh realization that living the way I had for so long was very unnatural and detrimental to my wellbeing.”

The distance between herself and Elvis grew exponentially, and Priscilla eventually began an affair.