"Manipulative man": Priscilla Presley opens up about Michael Jackson in candid new memoir

Priscilla Presley isn't holding back in her forthcoming memoir, spilling jaw-dropping details about her late daughter Lisa Marie Presley's whirlwind marriage to Michael Jackson.

In Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla writes about Lisa Marie, detailing that she once asked her daughter if she had a physical relationship with the King of Pop. She explained:

"Like so many people, I wasn't sure. She said yeah."

Priscilla Presley goes on to reveal that she was far from thrilled when Lisa Marie married Michael Jackson in 1994.

For the author-businesswoman, the "Billie Jean" crooner was after "good publicity," considering that the relationship came amid the child molestation accusations against him.

"I was appalled by the marriage. I knew in my bones that Michael wasn’t marrying Lisa Marie; he was marrying the Presley dynasty.”

She also claims that Michael was crafty, who reached out to her daughter at the height of the controversy. Priscilla Presley also divulges that he avoided meeting her and preferred interacting with children at family events.

“Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it. The childlike innocence he projected was part of his public mask.”

The marriage was short-lived and collapsed two years later.

Per the memoir, Priscilla Presley writes that she “could practically hear Elvis sigh with relief” when Lisa Marie and Michael divorced. She adds that the "Thriller" hitmaker wanted a baby, but Priscilla recounts advising Lisa Marie to delay starting a family.

Lisa Marie was the only child of Priscilla with the rock and roll icon Elvis Presley. She passed away in 2023 at 54.

Meanwhile, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis is set for release on Sept. 23.

Priscilla Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie opens up about marriage to Michael Jackson in her own memoir

In 2024, Lisa Marie's memoir From Here to the Great Unknown was released posthumously, where she recounts her relationship with Michael. In the book, she reveals that the pop icon was a virgin when they started dating.

"I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a thing with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been physical apart from a kiss. He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once, too, but nothing happened."

She goes on to divulge in the posthumous work that their physical relationship gradually developed:

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“I was terrified, because I didn’t want to make the wrong move. When he decided to first kiss me, he just did it. He was instigating everything. The physical stuff started happening, which I was shocked at. I had thought that maybe we wouldn’t do anything until we got married, but he said, ‘I’m not waiting!’”

From Here to the Great Unknown was published by Pan MacMillan and Random House, with the assistance of Lisa Marie's daughter, Riley Keough. Work on the memoir first began in 2022, shortly before her death.

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