Priscilla Presley’s Parents Looked at Her in ‘Absolute Horror’ When She Returned From a Visit to See Elvis

Priscilla Presley’s parents began reluctantly letting her fly across the Atlantic to visit Elvis. They had met in Germany, where Priscilla and her family lived, but he moved back to the United States several months into their relationship. After a lengthy visit over Priscilla’s summer break from school, her parents eagerly waited for her at the airport. When they saw her, though, their excitement turned to horror.

Priscilla Presley’s parents were not happy to see her get off the plane

At the end of her visit to Los Angeles with Elvis, Priscilla did not want to leave. Elvis ultimately convinced her to get on the plane home, though she still wasn’t happy about it. Priscilla said she endured the long flight “in a daze,” not caring who saw that she was openly weeping the entire time. 

When they landed, she stumbled off the plane, so distressed that she never thought to check a mirror or freshen up. Her parents, however, immediately noticed her disheveled appearance. 

“When I first saw my parents, my mother was crying with joy at seeing me and my father was wearing a big welcome-home smile,” she wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “But as I came nearer, their expressions changed from delight to absolute horror. My father turned away angrily. For a moment, my mother just stared. Then she reached into her purse, pulled out a mirror, and thrust it at me. ‘Look at yourself! How could you walk off the plane like that?'”

She immediately understood what had shocked them. The hours of weeping had left her with messy hair and makeup streaks.

“Two weeks before, I had left them, a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old, wearing a suitable white cotton suit and innocent of anything but a touch of mascara,” she wrote. “Now, not only was I wearing the heavy makeup that Elvis liked, but my tears had smeared it all over my face. I hadn’t bothered to lift a comb to my hair, which was unkempt and tangled. My parents were shocked and disappointed.”

Her father did not speak to her on the ride home

Priscilla asked to use the bathroom to clean her face, but her parents wouldn’t let her. Her father seemed to think making her leave it on her face would be a punishment.

“‘You’re going straight home,’ my father snapped. ‘If you left it on this long, you might as well keep it on another hour.’ He hardly said another word to me until we got home and I washed my face.”

Priscilla Presley’s parents allowed her to spend Christmas at Graceland

Almost immediately, Priscilla and Elvis began plotting to get her on a plane back to the United States. He wanted her to visit for Christmas, which she knew her parents would not like. They already disapproved of the relationship — she was 16 and Elvis was 26 — and Christmas was important to the family.

Still, Priscilla begged her mother until she finally caved.

“My poor mother was torn between making a dream come true for her daughter and doing what was right as a parent,” she wrote. “‘When will this end?’ she murmured with an anguished expression. Finally, she agreed to speak to my father.”

Just six months after her visit to LA, Priscilla got on another plane to spend Christmas at Graceland.