She has spent almost seventy years being looked at. She met Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old, married him at 21, divorced him at 28, and has carried his name through every decade since.
Then, on July 30, she posted a short video from her own home with no interviewer and nothing to sell, and said something that stopped her followers cold.
I have suffered a lot in my life. She did not stop there. She said she has felt for people and still does. She said she feels she has seen it all, has truly learned from it, and now has to appreciate it. She added that her old friends mean the world to her, and that helping whoever needs it is what makes her happy.
Priscilla’s Message
Think about what seeing it all means coming from her. She was a teenager living in the most famous house in America, watching a superstar husband leave on tour and return changed. She lost Elvis in 1977, when he was only 42. She lost her grandson Benjamin Keough in 2020. In January 2023, she lost her only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, at just 54.
Priscilla has spoken about that last loss before, and her words were hard to hear. She called the day she took Lisa Marie off life support the second saddest day of her life, after losing Elvis. She said it was unbearable, like a large part of her own life had been taken away. She had sensed something was wrong days earlier at the Golden Globes.
She does not say she is broken. She says she has learned, and that she has to appreciate it. That is not a woman asking for sympathy. For someone who has buried a husband, a grandson, and a daughter, to appreciate is a remarkable word to reach for.
See Priscilla Presley’s Rare Red-Hot Appearance in Spain | E! News
She is not retreating from life either. Hours after that video went out, Priscilla stepped out for a rare appearance in Spain, dressed head to toe in red, with matching lipstick and handbag, and fans called her ageless. Her memoir, Softly, As I Leave You, forced her to relive all of it, the wonderful and the terrible. At 81, she is finally saying it out loud.