Priscilla Presley’s ‘Delusion’ That She Could Change Elvis’ Lifestyle Fell Apart Quickly

Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley lived together for years before they got married. She grew to understand his lifestyle quite well. She knew that he kept late night hours, became obsessed with various hobbies, and didn’t like to do anything without the constant presence of his entourage. While Priscilla didn’t want to change Elvis as a person after they married, she did want to make some changes to his lifestyle. She explained that her hopes fell apart after a few days of marriage.

Priscilla Presley hoped she could change Elvis’ lifestyle

While Priscilla and Elvis were dating, she came to understand that she got surprisingly little alone time with him. When he wasn’t away for work, his large entourage was always around. She hoped that marriage would change this.

“There’s an old Southern belief that holds that a woman goes into a marriage thinking she can change her man, while a man wants his woman to stay the same as when he married her,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “I didn’t want to change Elvis, but I did have the romantic delusion that once we were married, I could change our lifestyle.”

She explained that for a fleeting period, this seemed possible. While Elvis’ entourage followed them to the ranch where they spent time after the wedding, they gave the newlyweds space.

“I loved playing house,” she wrote. “I personally washed all his clothes, along with the towels and sheets, and took pride in ironing his shirts and rolling up his socks the way my mother had taught me. Here was an opportunity to take care of him myself. No maids or housekeepers to pamper us. No large rooms to embrace the regular entourage.”

Soon, though, Elvis began welcoming his entourage back into their lives. Despite Priscilla’s hopes for their marriage, she didn’t want Elvis to think she would get between him and his friends.

“I understood Elvis’ need for the camaraderie the entourage provided,” she wrote, “and I didn’t want to take him away from the people he loved, especially now that we were married.”

The musician criticized other women for trying to change their husbands

Priscilla ultimately gave up on the dream of increased alone time with Elvis. She knew he disliked it when wives got between men and their friends. 

“He had always criticized wives who tried to change the status quo,” she wrote. “He told me about one wife, saying, ‘She doesn’t like him to be around the boys so much. She’s going to cause problems in the group.’ The last thing I wanted was for Elvis to think I’d be the kind of wife who’d come between her man and his friends.”

It seemed better to accept the entourage as a part of her life than to create waves in her new marriage.

Priscilla Presley’s decision to leave Elvis had to do with his lifestyle

Though Priscilla gave up on her hopes of changing Elvis’ lifestyle, she could never wholly accept the constant presence of his entourage. They eventually played a role in the couple’s divorce. She didn’t want her young daughter, Lisa Marie, growing up around these men.

 “It wasn’t about not liking, it wasn’t about not loving,” she said of her divorce on Larry King Live. “It was a lifestyle. I was having a daughter. It was not being able to raise a daughter and a lifestyle of bachelors, and not only that, they were married — some were married, and there was a lot of unethical relationships going on.”