You need to know
Priscilla Presley recalls how she navigated her relationship with Robert Kardashian during her divorce from Elvis Presley.
Priscilla, 80, opened up about her relationship with the late lawyer in her second book, Softly, As As Leave You: Life after Elvis. Priscilla dated Kardashian in 1975, two years after her and Elvis divorced. Kardashian died of esophageal cancer in 2003. He was 59 years old. Elvis died of a heart attack in 1977. He was 42 years old.
In the book, Priscilla recalls the night Elvis called her after a performance at 2am.
Longarella via Getty
“It didn’t go beyond (Elvis’) heart that I might have been asleep. It never happened to him that I might be with another man,” Presley wrote. “Even despite our divorce, he still couldn’t wrap my head around anyone else.”
“He would have literally become ballistic if he had known Robert was in my bedroom,” Presley wrote. “Elvis always had a loaded gun and sometimes multiple guns.”
Presley never knew that Kardashian had called the singer later that night, and Elvis had no idea about his relationship with Kardashian.
“Fortunately (Kardashian) was a healthy sleeper so I jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone before I woke him,” Presley wrote. “I heard the familiar voice by closing the hall into the guest’s bedroom with toes and closing the door.”
Presley and Kardashian had been dating for about a year, but explained that he didn’t like his “demanding” work had made him “for long periods of time.”
“Robert was a sweet guy and I liked him,” she said. “Robert wanted to get married, but I knew it wouldn’t work. I wasn’t ready to get married again.”
They remained friends. Before Kardashian passed away in 2003, the former couple had their final conversation while in the hospital. Presley revealed that it was organized by his daughter Kim Kardashian. “He is a kind man and I remember him with great affection.”
Kardashian married Kris Jenner in 1978 and had four children, Kim, 44, Kourtney, 46, Khloé, 41, and Robert Jr., 38.
Presley and Elvis have Lisa Marie Presley and Lisa Marie Marie, born in 1968, died in 2023 at the age of 54 from a small intestinal obstruction.
Lisa Marie and her ex-husband Danny Keeh had two children, Riley Keeh and Benjamin Keeh, who died in 2020 after committing suicide at the age of 27.
Frank Carroll/Sigma via Getty
Priscilla recently opened up about her daughter’s tragic death in an interview with People’s Cover this week, calling it “the second saddest day of my life besides losing Elvis.”
The family was in the hospital all day long hours before Lisa Mary passed away on January 12th.
“Lisa was really not breathing, so she was on the ventilator. We waited for hours and waited and prayed until the doctor came in and said, ‘I’m sorry Priscilla, she’s gone,'” she recalled for the people. “We couldn’t believe it — we didn’t want to believe it. It was tough for all of us, and it’s still true.”
You won’t miss the story. Sign up for people’s free daily newsletters and stay up to date with what people have to offer, from celebrity news to stories of fascinating human interests.
Gently, once I leave you, life after Elvis will be available on September 23rd.
