By the early 1970s, Elvis and Priscilla Presley’s marriage was already struggling.
Elvis spent long stretches performing in Las Vegas and touring, while Priscilla later said she increasingly felt that her own needs came second. She also acknowledged Elvis had been unfaithful during their relationship. In a 2017 interview, she explained that she eventually reached a point where she no longer wanted to “share him.”
But Priscilla later admitted that she had affairs too.
In her 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, she revealed two relationships during the marriage: a brief affair with a dance instructor she called “Mark” and, more importantly, a relationship with karate champion Mike Stone. Contemporary reporting on the memoir confirmed both admissions.
Ironically, karate was something Elvis himself loved.
Priscilla took up the martial art partly because it was one of Elvis’s passions. She eventually began training with Stone, a successful tournament fighter and black belt. Their relationship became romantic as Priscilla grew increasingly unhappy in her marriage.
Mike Stone Talks About His Relationship With Priscilla Presley
In the interview, Stone discusses meeting Elvis and Priscilla and eventually becoming romantically involved with her.
For Elvis, discovering that Priscilla was involved with another man was reportedly devastating.
Elvis friend and bodyguard Sonny West later claimed the deepest wound was not simply that Priscilla had an affair. It was that she appeared prepared to leave Elvis for Stone, someone Elvis himself knew through the karate world.
Priscilla ultimately told Elvis she wanted to leave in 1972.
By 1973, she was openly discussing Stone. In an interview published that year, Priscilla described him as a black-belt karate champion and said the relationship gave her a freedom she had not experienced before.
Elvis and Priscilla’s divorce became final on October 9, 1973. Despite everything that had happened, the separation remained relatively amicable and they continued sharing responsibility for their daughter, Lisa Marie.
Years later, Priscilla did not present herself simply as the innocent person in a failed marriage. She openly acknowledged her own infidelity while also describing the loneliness and problems that had existed between them.
And in one of the strangest twists of their story, the karate world Elvis loved became the place where Priscilla met the man who helped convince her it was finally time to leave.