And thats how it happened 🥲

This may be a prickly subject, and I'm sorry if so. But I'm trying to learn more about Elvis, and every time I bring him up to people I know, they try to tell me he was this terrible person, and point me toward Priscilla's book, the movie made on it, and the discourse. Idk if you've talked about it on here (I tried searching your blog but couldn't find anything on it). If you're willing, I'd love to hear your take on it so I can see a more nuanced view.

The film Priscilla was greenlit roughly a month after Priscilla herself was informed that she was close to becoming financially insolvent in 2022. With a business partner, Brigitte Kruse, who allegedly helped broker the film deal, she established a limited liability company called Priscilla Presley Partners that was supposed to use her image and likeness to create several lines of merchandise to coincide with the film's release. That business partner is now suing Priscilla because she did not have the rights to her image or likeness, or any ability to use the Presley name, because she had already sold all of those rights and was no longer considered in good standing with Graceland or Elvis Presley Enterprises. The entire business deal, then, according to the lawsuit, was built on her misrepresentation of how much her image was worth.

The deal between the two of them fell apart after Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter and Priscilla's granddaughter, settled with Priscilla to give her a lump sum of $1 million from Lisa Marie's estate and yearly amounts of $100,000. Priscilla sued very shortly after Lisa Marie's death because she thought Lisa Marie's signature on a will had been forged because Priscilla was not included in it. All of the assets were supposed to go directly to Lisa Marie's son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020, and her three daughters, two of whom are still teenagers. Now, part of those assets have been claimed by Priscilla and her other son, Navarone, who has no connection to the Presley family and has stated he is glad Lisa died.

Four months before Lisa's death, Lisa wrote to Sofia Coppola and made it clear she had strong concerns about the Priscilla film and was suspicious of the intentions behind it:

"As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. ... I will be forced to be in a position where I will have to openly say how I feel about the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly."

Lisa was enormously grateful for efforts put into 2022's Elvis to find her father's soul and to restore his dignity in a world that often turns him and his family into a joke:

"You can feel and witness Baz’s pure love, care, and respect for my father throughout this beautiful film, and it is finally something that myself and my children and their children can be proud of forever."

It is such a strong and powerful statement, to see how much Lisa valued family, not just her father but her own children and their legacy, and how willing she was to speak up no matter what was going on in her personal life to say what was right. On this and many other things, Lisa and Priscilla's values have rarely been in alignment. A friend and EPE business associate, Joel Weinshanker, said of her, "Lisa couldn't be bought, she couldn't be pushed. If she felt that something wasn't in Elvis' best interest, it was never about money. And she really is the only Presley that you could say that about."

Priscilla, though, has adjusted her stories about her time with Elvis almost every time she discusses it. For a quick example, she said in her book, which was released in 1985, that Elvis insisted she do her hair and makeup a certain way, that he had control over her look and would get upset if she didn't dress how he wanted. But in an interview with Ladies' Home Journal in 1973, she said that she made a deliberate choice to attend makeup school so that she could learn how to style herself, and that it was her idea to wear big, black hair and big, black eyeliner. She said she was embarrassed for going overboard. She said, "I wish that Elvis had said something, but he must have liked it because he never commented." This lines up with recollections from Patti Parry, a platonic friend of Elvis' and a hairstylist, who said Priscilla always wanted Patti to do her hair in a "big boombah," but that Priscilla would then get upset when Elvis didn't notice or didn't like it.

These changes are impossible not to notice if you follow her for any length of time. At the film premiere, she said it felt just like watching her life and said she was consulted on everything, since she was an executive producer. After the film came out, she said she couldn't understand why Coppola had changed so much about the story and misrepresented events. In the '70s, she said she and Elvis lived almost totally separate lives, that she came and went as she pleased, and that she loved this freedom. Later, she said she felt completely stifled and trapped and never left the house, even though she had friends she went out with all the time. In 2019, she tweeted a forceful denial about a National Enquirer story: "This is the Enquirer folks... please don't believe everything you read. ... Never planned on being buried next to Elvis. What will they come up with next?" But part of her settlement demands in her lawsuit against Riley in 2023 asked "to be buried next to Elvis." This year, she said in two separate interviews that Lisa was with her when Elvis died and that Priscilla had to break the news to her, despite the fact that Lisa was at Graceland when it happened. She has said she gave Elvis the idea to wear belts on his jumpsuits, to have a lightning bolt as his logo, to sing "An American Trilogy," though none of that is true. She retells the story about forcing Elvis to burn all of his spiritual books to prove he loved her as an almost funny anecdote about debrainwashing him, while Elvis later said it was the worst thing he ever agreed to, a desperate attempt to make her happy by giving up the things he valued the most. (For the record, this is my opinion about their relationship on both sides: thinking they could change themselves and each other to make it work. It never did.)

Every secondhand Elvis account has to be treated lightly and only valued for its consistency with known facts and other witnesses. I try to give enormous benefit of the doubt to anyone in the Elvis world because they often only have partial knowledge of what Elvis may have been thinking at any given time, and there are numerous examples of people who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous journalists who changed the story they wanted to tell. But Priscilla's stories sometimes are not even consistent with her own statements, which makes them very poor options indeed to base anything on. However careful we are about noting potential biases and inaccuracies in other memoirs, we have to be triply, quadruply careful with anything in which Priscilla involves herself because she has a vested interest in generating discourse today in order to make money. Unfortunately, Priscilla has a habit of stifling other accounts or making sensationalized statements each time there is a possibility that she will lose some of the cachet that comes with being an Elvis Source—after Elvis' death, when she believed she was going to inherit his airplane and disinvited everyone that Vernon said could fly in it to his funeral; when she sued the parents of one of Elvis' ex-girlfriends after he died because he had allowed them to live rent-free in a house he bought for them; when she claimed that Elvis wanted to reunite with her before his death, despite the fact that he was engaged to someone else and told many people he couldn't see a reunion ever happening with her; before Vernon's death, when she convinced him to make her an executor of the Presley estate until Lisa came of age; after Lisa came of age, when she convinced Lisa to let her stay on as partner; when Lisa accused Priscilla of misspending Lisa's money, during which time anonymous sources cropped up to say Lisa was in debt and drug-addled; when Priscilla was removed from her position as an EPE spokesperson but kept collecting $900,000 a year from the company; when Lisa died, and Priscilla sued once she learned she wasn't in the will; when Priscilla was no longer associated with EPE and decided to do another adaptation of a book that she has since recanted parts of and has contradicted before and after its release.

When Priscilla thinks there is a threat to her image and position, she does new interviews and projects to muddy the waters and stir public interest, whether it is true or false, positive or negative, laudatory or defamatory. She gets corrected by Elvis' surviving family members, girlfriends, friends, and fans, but these stories do not get the same reach no matter how much they are backed by contemporaneous documents and witnesses, or how many resources there are to educate the public on how Elvis' and Priscilla's attitudes about marriage and relationships changed—along with the rest of society—between 1960 and 1970.

I think almost any single-source project is not going to advance our understanding of Elvis in any way because no one individual can speak for him, and we are kind of obligated to include all the context we can in order to appreciate his character, his successes and failures, flaws and virtues—and to treat both himself and those around him as fully three-dimensional people who have their own blind spots. Priscilla is far too aware of her own image, and far too willing to change it to suit the audience, to be particularly valuable here.

She is next scheduled to appear at the Lexington (Kentucky) Comic & Toy Con.

🫠🫠🫠 ugh I love him

Remember when I asked if Elcis was into biting others to show affection?

Just saw this on Instagram 👀

oh my goddd, this man was too much I cannot handle it- thank you for sharing because this just became my new favorite еlvis anecdote

I absolutely love that he refused to show affection like a normal person, I want Elvis Presley to gnaw and bite at me like a shark 😩 !!

(excerpt from Elvis and the Memphis Mafia)

The jacket… The hands on his hips.. Those beautiful baby blues.

the hand thing

I'm going down my Elvis in Leather Gloves Rabbit Hole again, and I never want to get out...

My favorite 50s!Elvis photos, part 96 of ∞; Return of ✨The Thing✨

One of my fav genre of Elvis pics: Him absolutely, genuinely loving and appreciating the fan gifts.

Shoutout to @whositmcwhatsit for bringing the crown to my attention, I really love it!

Ice was an 100% an Elvis fan. I will not back down from this, Val told me himself

Do i have any proof for this?

No. Anyways

This is Val Kilmer in his 1984 movie 'top secret'

I have not seen the movie I'm just bullshitting my way through this

And this is a young(ish) Elvis Presley

Tell me I'm not the only one who sees the similarities plz (yes I know val Kilmer plays an American rock n roll singer which is essentially what Elvis is just go with it)

I hc Ice wore his hair like in the 70s/early 80s, bc he had the biggest crush on Elvis Presley this is completely self indulgent thank you goodbye

I love how he even through the good grades manage to have D still… just makes me honored that he didn’t need to be Brain smart to have success !! 🥹🙃

“it’s a real horse tail,” he said. He lifted it up high and looked at the back of my neck. “Yeah it’s a real horse tail, all right.”

I blushed the color of a ripe tomato. Elvis saw me blush and he laughed with childish delight. “Look at Arlene blush,” he said. Bobby made some comment about it in one of his funny voices and Elvis laughed even harder.

He lifted up my pony tail again. “Please, Elvis,” i said, trying to smile but afraid i was going to start crying. I knew he could be embarrassed easily. So i decided to get even with him.

When he got up to go in to the pool room with Bobby, I called out, “Oh, Elvis.” He turned around and looked at me. “Yeah?” I smiled. “I really like those tight black pants. There’s something in the way you fill them out in the rear. Especially when you walk away from us. You’ve got the cutest butt i ever saw.”

He frowned and blushed deep. “Arlene, cut that out,” he said. “Let us see it again, Elvis,” I said. He said “that’s enough, Arlene.” He looked really uncomfortable. And his blush was even deeper. He turned and walked out of the room as straight as you please.

- “Elvis, this one’s for you” By Arlene Cogan

elvis practicing his showgirl kicks on stage >>

whao, whao, whao, whao

courtesy of Peter Schmidt on youtube

when you love someone | late 60s!elvis x gn!reader

summary: you had a hard week and all elvis wants to do is make you feel better

wc: 1.7k

warnings: depression, mentions of anxiety, set after filming live a little love a little, gender neutral reader, written with my love and tears

note: 2 fics in one week ?? that's so crazy. i wrote this to comfort myself so i hope it's comforting to some of y'all too. somewhat inspired by this song. send in requests yall!! as always, may contain inaccuracies and mistakes. enjoy.

masterlist | send a request or say hi :)

you and elvis had been dating for a couple years now, meeting him on the set of one of his movies as an assistant. it was going well and you were happy to be able to travel with elvis whenever he was off filming. until word got out about your relationship and the colonel forbid you from stepping foot on set during this recent movie. not only would you be unable to see elvis for a long period of time, but you'd just lost your job as well. times like these made you grateful to have elvis around since he had offered to help you with rent until he could move you into graceland.

however, being home all alone was taking a toll on you. elvis was to return soon and you were a mess. you hadn't called him nor returned any of his phone calls in a week, dishes were piling up, and god knows when you last showered. you didn't even know what day it was. you'd been glued to your couch for the past week, refusing to get up for anything. elvis was probably worried about you but whatever. he's better off without you anyway, right?

you were on your fourth nap of the day, falling asleep to the sound of a random show on tv and drowning out the sounds of the telephone in the distance every hour or so. you didn't even realize elvis had shown up to your house.

he was grateful you had given him an extra key before he left since you didn't bother going to the door. the sight broke his heart. he first noticed the pile of mail he accidentally stepped on when he first walked in, picking it all up and bringing it to the living room where he saw you asleep peacefully, dirty dishes spread around the coffee table. it wasn't any better when he stepped foot in the kitchen, looking at a sink full of various pots and pans coated with dinner that must have been made three or four days ago. it was no wonder you hadn't returned his calls. he was worried sick about you. even being in your house, he was still worried, unsure of how you'd react to him being at your house when you woke up.

any other man would grab their things and leave, completely ignoring the state of a house this messy. but elvis wasn't any other man, he was your boyfriend and he adored you. it upset him terribly knowing you must of been feeling bad recently for your house, which was once kept so pristine, to end up in such a mess. the fact you'd have to clean this all up one day must have been adding on to your stress as well and he wasn't going to have that. time to get to work.

starting with the living room, he quietly began bringing dishes to the kitchen, washing, drying them and setting them back where they belong. he didn't forget the pots and pans either, scrubbing away for what felt like ages and laying them out to dry. he swept and wiped down the counters for you as well along with discarding any empty food packages you'd thrown around and hadn't bothered to pick up. you were still sound asleep by the time he finished cleaning the kitchen and living room so he went ahead and did your laundry too, not forgetting to fold and put away your clothes in the way you liked them organized.

he hated waking you up for anything, but it was getting late and he knew you'd regret napping like this so close to your usual bedtime. he kneeled down to the couch, gently placing a hand on your shoulder. "hon?" he said, shaking you softly from your sleep.

you opened your eyes to a concerned elvis, looking at you with sad, tired eyes. you rubbed the sleep from your eyes, your brain finally registering that your boyfriend was in your own home after being away for a month. "elvis?"

he flashed a smile at you. "hi baby, what's goin' on?"

you sat up slowly, patting down your unbrushed bed hair. you looked around, noticing the lack of dishes and the new cleanliness of your home. "what-elvis. please tell me you-"

"don't worry about it, it's the least i can do." he sat on the edge, leaning in to give you a much-needed kiss until you backed away from him, covering yourself. "don't. you shouldn't see me like this. i thought i had another week."

he frowned. "oh baby, you're still beautiful." he kissed you anyway, placing a hand on the side of your cheek. "i came home early cause you wouldn't answer my calls, i was worried sick, darlin'"

you turned away from him, avoiding eye contact, embarrassed. here he was, the most handsome man to ever exist on this earth was in front of you while you sat there with your unbrushed hair and clothes from a week ago. "i'm sorry."

he turned your face back towards him. "none of that, no apologizin'" he stood up and held out his hand. "lets go run you a bath, sound good?"

you took his hand as he took you to the bathroom, passing the kitchen and finding yourself feeling guilty for letting elvis do all of this for you, especially for letting him see you like this. he drew you a warm bath, helping you undress and helping you in as he sat on the edge of the tub, washing away a weeks worth of dirt from your hair and body. he was gentle with you. massaging your scalp with your favorite strawberry shampoo and rinsing it out carefully. you noticed the bathroom was cleaned too. there was that feeling of guilt again. you couldn't even look elvis in the eye, not even while he was humming one of the songs he used in a recent film as he conditioned your hair.

"which one was that?" you asked, breaking the silence.

"what? the conditioner? it's the strawberry one, did i use-"

you rolled your eyes playfully. "no, the song."

his lips perked up, chuckling softly. "i didn't even realize i was hummin'" he shook his head, moving onto rinsing your hair out again. "almost in love."

"excited to hear it." you murmured, running your hands through the soapy bath water.

"you'll like it." he reached for the towel behind him, drying your hair thoroughly. "at least i hope you do." he joked.

your face scrunched up as he went a little too rough drying your hair, mumbling a quiet 'sorry'. "why wouldn't i? i love everything you release."

he unplugged the drain and helped you out of the tub, handing you a towel for you to dry the rest of your body off as he fetched you some clean clothes. "is that right? don't lie now."

you dried yourself off, "yeah elvis, i hate everything you release." you said sarcastically as you put on your clothes. you tried to ignore how he also did your laundry for you, shaking off the guilt.

"there we go, that's what i like to hear." he joked. he picked up your brush and placed both hands on your face, giving you a quick kiss. "you're awful." you said. he grinned at you, tapping your nose with his finger. "aren't i just the worst?" he took your hand again, pulling you to your bedroom. he sat you on the edge of the bed as he got behind you, brushing away gently. you took a quick glance in the small mirror sitting on your dresser and watched as he brushed your hair. your eyes welled up with tears. you felt so undeserving of elvis and his kindness. the guilt was starting to eat away at you. there weren't enough words to describe how much you loved elvis and how well he treated you.

it wasn't long until elvis noticed your tears, setting the brush aside and turning you towards him. "oh no, baby. c'mere." he pulled you in a tight embrace, letting you cry into his shoulder as you held him tightly. "let it all out, i got you."

"i'm so sorry, you shouldn't have done any of this for me. i don't know what got into me, it's just been so hard." you said in between sobs. your anxiety finally caught up to you. losing your job and fearing you'd lose elvis too, you didn't know what you would do without him.

elvis rubbed your back up and down, letting you vent and cry. "i know hon, i know." he whispered. "'m here now. i'll take care of you." he had his own insecurities, often worrying about what fans think of his movies. how he was unhappy with how a lot of them turned out and how badly he wanted to move on from them. it was something he often spoke to you about. you were the one who made him not give up on his career, you gave him that boost he always needed. it was always you, now it was his turn for a change.

you apologized over and over again for making him take care of you. the tears just wouldn't stop. he released you from his embrace to crawl up to the headboard, you following shortly after. he pulled you in his lap as you rested your head on his chest, sniffling softly. "don't want to ever hear you apologize. none of this is your fault, you got that? i just wish you knew how much you mean to me." he said, running his fingers through your damp hair. "love you so much, little one. so damn much. wish i could take those nasty little thoughts from your head and deal with 'em myself."

"you don't wanna know what my thoughts are like, elvis. i wouldn't wish it on anyone." you mumbled.

he sighed. "i'm sorry you have to go through that, baby. you don't deserve that. at least i can make 'em go away for awhile." he wrapped an arm around you, holding you close.

"thank you for everything, really. i love you."

"love you too, little one. always will." he replied softly, going back to humming the same song from earlier as he rocked the two of you gently from side to side, leaving you in your own little world for a little while.

the psychic damage of co-star notifications x the psychic damage of watching the 2022-23 columbus blue jackets

(i blame this post from graves-makar)

My favorite 50s!Elvis photos, part 53 of ∞; Elvis doing ‘The Thing’, again