In 1994, Priscilla Presley became Michael Jackson’s mother-in-law when he married Lisa Marie Presley. Priscilla said she didn’t have any knowledge of their wedding in advance. This wasn’t the only issue she had with Jackson. She found his behavior off-putting and didn’t think he was good for her daughter. The tension between them was real—Priscilla never really connected with her son-in-law. Michael Jackson went to great lengths to avoid her, which only confirmed her concerns.
Priscilla Presley said she found Michael Jackson’s behavior strange
While Priscilla had concerns about Jackson, she said that when Lisa Marie started dating him, she wanted to be civil with him. She didn’t get a chance to talk to him, though. The disconnect was immediate and uncomfortable.
“My relationship with Michael was bizarre from the beginning,” Priscilla wrote in her book Softly, As I Leave You. “Not long after Lisa started dating him, she invited me to a party that he was attending at her house. She’d invited a group of people over to eat, and Michael was included. I thought it might be a good chance for me to get to know him a little and see if my concerns were valid. I was prepared to be pleasant, but he wanted nothing to do with me. He stayed as far away from me as possible. In fact, he stayed far away from all the adults.”
Priscilla said she thought Michael might just be shy. When she asked Lisa Marie about him, she said that he spoke to her normally when they were in private. Priscilla never saw this side of him, though. She said that he didn’t talk to her, even after he married Lisa Marie. It was strange and hurtful, really—like being deliberately excluded from a family moment.
“He continued to go to great lengths to avoid me,” she wrote. “My only actual contact with him was during an Elvis event in Memphis … I went by the hotel beforehand to meet up with Lisa and asked her where Michael was. She said he was in the other room. He didn’t come out to greet me. A few minutes after I arrived, the door down the hall opened, and Michael popped out. He grabbed his hat off the table where he’d left it, sort of smiled, and then popped back in the room and shut the door. He said nothing to me on the way to the show.”
Priscilla said that this was her one and only interaction with Jackson—just a fleeting, awkward moment that said everything.
She saw him as manipulative
Priscilla said she disapproved of Jackson’s relationship with Lisa Marie from the beginning. She worried that because Jackson was a big Elvis fan, he was only looking for a way to get closer to the Presley family. She also thought Jackson wanted to improve his image amid allegations of child sexual abuse. Her instincts told her something was off, and she felt compelled to protect her daughter.
“Lisa had first met him in Las Vegas as a child and reconnected years later,” she wrote. “He was ten years older than she was, the same age difference there had been between Elvis and me. Michael had started reaching out to her when the child abuse charges went public. I think that’s how he hooked her in the beginning. She felt very sorry for him, and naturally, she believed in his innocence.”
She believed that he was manipulating Lisa Marie throughout their relationship. What looked like romance to her daughter felt like a calculated strategy to Priscilla.
“Michael was a manipulative man, and I think he had his sights set on her long before she realized it,” she wrote. “The childlike innocence he projected was part of his public mask. She learned this early on, and it bothered her, but she didn’t see it for the warning sign it was.” Priscilla’s Michael Jackson critique is sharp and unflinching—she saw through what others missed.
Priscilla Presley said she felt relieved when her daughter left Michael Jackson
While Priscilla said that Lisa Marie initially believed Jackson was innocent, the allegations began to weigh on her. They ended their marriage in 1996. Priscilla said this came as a relief—like a weight had finally lifted off the family.
“Finally, she’d had enough,” Priscilla wrote. “She called me to tell me she wanted a divorce. She had begun to feel like the marriage was a setup. He didn’t want to be with her; he wanted to be with Elvis Presley’s daughter. If he’d wanted to be with her, he wouldn’t have been gone for most of their marriage.” The truth was painful but necessary to face.
Priscilla said that Elvis would have felt the same relief as she did when Lisa Marie left Jackson. Sometimes as parents, we see things clearly before our children do—and we can only hope they find their way back to themselves. That’s what happened here.
★m★
