Elvis Presley had a temper. Everybody who lived around him agrees on that. What people disagree about is what kind of temper it was — and the person best placed to answer spent six years married to him.
Priscilla Presley has been asked about it for decades, and her account is careful and specific. Yes, he lost his temper. But she is adamant about one distinction: he took it out on objects, never on people. When something frustrated him, he threw whatever was nearest — a book, an ornament, whatever was to hand. He did not aim at anybody.
She tells one story that illustrates it perfectly, and it is not really about anger at all.
The Truth About Elvis’s Temper
Elvis was on the phone with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker — a man who could infuriate him like nobody else. At some point in the call, he lost it completely and hurled an object across the room without looking.
He had not realized Priscilla was standing there.
The moment it left his hand, he saw her, and by her account he shouted “Oh my God!” and ran straight over to check she was alright. He was genuinely frightened by what he had nearly done. The anger vanished instantly the second someone was in the way.
Elvis Presley fighting stories told by the Memphis Mafia. Love affairs, drugs, temper, funny, sad, legend
His entourage — the Memphis Mafia — have told plenty of stories over the years, and the pattern in most of them is the same. Elvis stepping in when somebody was being bullied. Elvis putting himself between a friend and trouble. Elvis pulling a karate stance to end a confrontation without throwing a punch. He liked being the one who sorted it out.
The most famous version of that instinct is not a fight at all. He kept a police scanner running at Graceland, and there are documented occasions where he turned up at accidents and traffic incidents to help before the police arrived — on one occasion in 1976, directing traffic at a crash site until drivers started recognizing him.
So the picture is more interesting than “the King had a temper.” He was quick to anger, easily set off, physically trained, and horrified the instant he thought he had frightened somebody.
He threw things. He just made very sure nobody was standing where they landed.