Piers Morgan asked Priscilla Presley a simple question: was Elvis the great love of her life? She didn’t even pause. Yes. Then he asked if she wished the marriage had lasted. This time she went quiet. She searched for the right words. What she finally said stopped the room cold: “I think we were better not married.” It sounds cruel. It isn’t. To understand it, you have to know what it actually felt like to be Mrs. Elvis Presley.
It meant standing just off the side of the stage while thousands of women screamed for your husband. It meant strangers pushing past you to reach him, grabbing at him, asking him for kisses. Priscilla laughs when she tells Morgan about it now, but you can hear the tiredness under the laugh. Elvis’s fame wasn’t something that showed up once in a while. It lived inside their home. It followed him into every movie, every tour, every hotel hallway — and she had to smile through all of it.
Watch Priscilla recently talk about it with Morgan right here!
‘We were better not married’: Priscilla Presley discusses her relationship with Elvis
She also talked about the afternoon she checked the mail at their Palm Springs house. Inside were letters from women thanking Elvis — thanking him for inviting them over. Some said far more than that. Some thanked him for a night they would never forget. Standing there holding a stranger’s handwriting, Priscilla understood that her husband had a whole second life waiting for him in places like Las Vegas.
After all this, she still saw the kind, generous man she loved. She couldn’t be his wife anymore.
Their divorce became final in Santa Monica on October 9, 1973 — and what happened outside that courthouse looks nothing like a normal celebrity split.
They walked out arm in arm. Elvis kissed her goodbye. The photographer standing there, George Fry, remembered them smiling at each other like old friends. Years later, Dolly Parton shared something Priscilla told her: as they left the courthouse that day, Elvis sang “I Will Always Love You” to her. He never recorded that song. He used it to say goodbye.
Elvis and Priscilla Divorce
Priscilla also mentioned that even though the marriage ended, the bond didn’t. Sometimes, Elvis would come up to her house unannounced. He would knock on Priscilla’s door at two or three in the morning, sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend. She said he came because he was comfortable with the familiarity they shared. They would sit and talk for hours. Sometimes little Lisa Marie woke up and joined them, while Priscilla quietly counted the hours until school.
That is what she meant. As his wife, Priscilla had to compete with crowds, cameras, movie sets, and every woman in the room. As his friend, she got something better — she got the real him, sitting in her kitchen at 3 a.m. with a book in his hands. She never once said the love went away. She said the marriage was the only piece they had to let go of to keep it.