Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis

“I struggled to find a way to make the situation work, but it was painful trying to keep our family together. I felt like a failure as both a mother and a wife. Eventually, I had to choose. I was caught in a perfect storm of loneliness, isolation, jealousy, and guilt. By the time Lisa was four years old, I knew I had to make a decision.”

Priscilla lays out her decision to leave Elvis in plain language, which conveys her desire to “set the story straight.” Priscilla asserts that while she still loved Elvis, she also saw the need to brave the unknown to create a new life for herself and her daughter. Priscilla didn’t want to be defined by feelings of failure, and so exercised her agency by Discovering Personal Autonomy and Self-Empowerment.

“It worked well in almost every respect. But there was one glaring problem. Even when in physical proximity, Mommy and Daddy lived in different worlds. At Mommy’s house, things were calm and structured. In Daddy’s world, The King reigned.”

Priscilla contrasts her and Elvis’s parenting styles to show how complicated it was to raise Lisa Marie. Although Elvis deeply loved Lisa Marie, Priscilla critiques his lackadaisical approach to fatherhood; she was often frustrated that Lisa Marie wouldn’t cooperate with her when she returned home from her dad’s. This dynamic came to define Priscilla’s relationship with her daughter. The passage juxtaposes Priscilla and Elvis as people; Priscilla was “calm and structured” while Elvis was the charming and fun-loving center of attention.

“Discovering I was a Wagner had been painful and confusing. Discovering who I was without Elvis was sometimes confusing, but it was also an adventure. Most people struggle with their identity as teenagers. When I was a teenager, I adopted Elvis’s identity. Now, in my late twenties, I was going through a belated process of self-discovery.”

Priscilla compares leaving Elvis to discovering her biological father, underscoring the “painful and confusing” nature of her two identity crises. In the first of these crises, Priscilla did not have agency: The decision to hide her father’s identity and to change her name had been made for her and her mother swore her to secrecy even after Priscilla knew about Wagner. In contrast, Priscilla had more autonomy when she left Elvis. She decided whether to change her name and could define herself as she continued discovering personal autonomy and self-empowerment.

“Elvis was a flawed human being, like all of us, but he had love, compassion, and generosity to a truly remarkable degree. He became a superstar not out of ambition but out of love for his parents and a determination to lift them out of the grinding poverty they had endured. He was the most beautiful, talented, loving human being I have ever known.”

Throughout her memoir, Priscilla seeks to humanize her late ex-husband by focusing on his positive character traits. This passage, at the end of Priscilla’s reflections on Elvis’s death, acts as a eulogy and tribute. The passage has a tender, loving tone, which aligns with Priscilla’s sustained care for Elvis decades after his passing.

“From the first day I went, I loved the auditing. Talking about the things that I was holding inside was a wonderful relief. As the weeks of intense auditing went by, I began to get rid of my pain a little at a time. I would almost feel it coming out of me and dissipating in the air. My loss, my failures, my mistakes—all seemed to disappear.”

Priscilla describes joining the Church of Scientology community as a turning point in her life. Reeling after Elvis’s early death, Priscilla was looking for answers. She found support, comfort, and strength in her new religious affiliation. Her experiences of auditing in particular contributed to her self- journey of discovering personal autonomy and self-empowerment.

“It had been my home, too, and I still felt Elvis’s presence there. Selling it was unthinkable. I owed it to Elvis to save it. The problem was that my only experience with business was running the boutique. Saving Graceland was far beyond my skill set. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I was determined to find out.”

Priscilla’s decision to open Graceland to the public allowed her to capture memories and share Elvis’s legacy with the world. In this passage, Priscilla meditates on the estate’s importance to her, to Elvis, and to their history. Although Priscilla had little business experience, she was so determined to save Graceland that she braved the unknown with courage. The passage underscores Priscilla’s strength of character while underscoring Graceland’s symbolic significance.

“Common sense told me something was going on behind my back, but it was hard to believe because he was so sweet with me. More accurately, I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to accept that he was having flings with other women. You’d think I’d know better after my experience with Elvis. But I remained naive because I needed to be. I wanted to believe that Michael was faithful to me.”

Priscilla details her romances after she and Elvis divorced. By including this aspect of her life in the memoir, Priscilla hopes to humanize herself. In this passage, she admits her tendency toward naivety and her longing for a faithful, loving relationship. Priscilla uses vulnerability to engender trust with her reader and to create the sense that she is offering an accurate depiction of her experiences.

“That scene became a turning point for me. I began to feel like part of the class. I realized that we were all working hard to meet a certain standard for auditioning and performing. I had begun the class to cope with stage fright, but my goals had been transformed. The experience had broken me out of my shyness, my fear of being watched.”

Acting class helped Priscilla to understand herself better, spurring discovering personal autonomy and self-empowerment. When Priscilla did something that challenged her, she became stronger. She learned “to cope with stage fright,” and to overcome her “shyness and fear of being watched.”

“Now I became fearful for her safety. I worried about their effect on her health and future and what they could do to her reputation. Part of the price of celebrity is that your children can’t make their mistakes in private. If the press gets a hold of damaging information, they exaggerate and repeat it. The rumors become lies, and the lies proliferate.”

Lisa Marie’s drug use illustrates the difficulty of Navigating Fame, Public Expectation, and Legacy. Because Lisa Marie was always seen as Elvis’s daughter rather than her own person, Priscilla understood that the decisions she made would always be judged: Lisa Marie wasn’t free to make mistakes in private. Living in the spotlight impeded Lisa Marie’s personal freedoms and complicated Priscilla’s parenting.

“I had adored Grandma, but she didn’t bear any resemblance to my self-image. And Grandpa Elvis? What’s wrong with that picture? Yes, I can be vain, and on this occasion, vanity briefly raised its ugly head. But no temporary weakness on my part could eclipse the joy I felt in those children.”

Priscilla uses a confessional tone to describe her response to becoming a grandmother. While she was happy for Lisa Marie, Priscilla feared how this new role would alter others’ perceptions of her and her perception of herself. She confesses that she “can be vain” but does not berate herself for it, hoping simply revealing this facet of her character is enough to present her in a more nuanced light.

“Navarone was a joyous child, an adventurous spirit who thoroughly enjoyed life. Part of the reason was his nature: He was born happy and mischievous. Part of the reason was the environment he grew up in, surrounded by loving adults who encouraged his interests […] But an important part of the reason was that, unlike his sister, he did not grow up in the public eye.”

Priscilla devotes large portions of her memoir to considering how her children have spent their lives navigating fame, public expectation, and legacy. Just as Priscilla never parented in a vacuum, so too did her children not grow up in one. However, Priscilla holds that because Navarone was less burdened by Elvis’s legacy, he had more freedom to explore on his own terms, which was not the case for Lisa Marie.

“Both Lisa and Navarone knew I was adamantly opposed to drugs because of my experiences with Elvis. But instead of stopping my children from using, that knowledge just made them good at hiding what they were doing. They knew I would be angry and deeply worried if I found out. So they went to great lengths to keep me in the dark.”

Lisa Marie and Navarone’s substance use contribute to Priscilla’s reflections on the Generational Nature of Trauma. Priscilla explores how her children’s encounters with loss and their genetic predispositions led them to use and become reliant on drugs. She also describes her powerlessness in the face of this dynamic. This conveys how deeply cycles of trauma and tragedy impact family members with seemingly little intervention possible.

“Like so many women as they grow older, I had learned a great deal about myself. I knew I was stronger than I had ever imagined. I knew I was a good businesswoman. I knew I could rise to the occasion when life presented me with challenges. And when I was once more on my own, I rediscovered the joy of independence, of freedom.”

After Priscilla divorced Elvis in the 1970s, she maintained her spirit of freedom and self-empowerment throughout her life. In this passage, she is reflecting on her decision to leave Navarone’s dad, Marco Garibaldi, when she was in her sixties. At an older age, Priscilla still held the same desire to protect her independence. The decision speaks to Priscilla’s continued process of discovering personal autonomy and self-empowerment.

“Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I would tell Tom not to tell me. It was just too hard. The burden of so many people’s pain became crushing. I already carried so many people with me. Vernon. Grandma. Elvis. And all too soon, I would be carrying more pain than I ever could have imagined.”

Priscilla has used her celebrity platform to help others in need. In this passage, Priscilla is reflecting on working with the Dream Foundation in one of the many instances in the memoir of balancing the positive and negative aspects of her experience. Here, she admits that while she felt rewarded and purposeful, the work was also painful. The last line of the passage foreshadows the deaths of Benjamin and Lisa Marie.

“It would be a long time before I found out, but there was a worm hidden in the bud of our joy. The birth had been hard on Lisa, and she was in considerable pain afterward. Her doctors gave her opiates to cope. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, but Lisa inherited Elvis’s vulnerability to opioid addiction.”

Priscilla does not shy away from detailing harrowing aspects of her life, which renders her memoir honest, open, and complex. Here, Priscilla is exploring the connection between the twins’ birth and Lisa Marie’s relapse; while the birth was happy, it begot another era of pain and loss for Priscilla’s family.

“Scientology was right about one thing: Celebrities have a unique ability to attract attention for causes they believe in. They have a voice, a public voice that will be heard and often listened to. I wanted to use my voice on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves, for celebrity has obligations as well as privileges.”

Priscilla’s celebrity status has her navigating fame, public expectation, and legacy. While Priscilla repeatedly conveys the difficulties of living in the spotlight, in this passage she describes the benefits of being famous: Chief among them is the chance to help others in need. This presents Priscilla as a more enlightened, progressive individual who is aware of her privilege.

“Elvis was a remarkable human being. Yes, he was flawed, as all of us are, but he was a flawed diamond. He was passionate, loving, generous, artistically brilliant, and utterly unique. I want the world to remember the man I remember, ever more clearly with the passage of time.”

Priscilla’s memoir seeks to challenge negative depictions of Elvis, working to safeguard his legacy while navigating fame, public expectation, and legacy. This passage is one of many in which she pays tribute to her late ex-husband. While Priscilla spent her life trying to define herself outside of Elvis, she also underscores the influential role he played in her life.

“I understood his dilemma all too well. Elvis had reacted the same way whenever I’d gently tried to get him to address his drug usage. And I knew from experience with both Elvis and my son that my talking to her wouldn’t do any good. It would simply strain our relationship. An intervention seemed out of the question. As Lisa herself used to say, nobody told her what to do. She was her own woman.”

Priscilla creates a direct parallel between the drug use of Elvis, Navarone, and Lisa Marie, making plain the generational nature of trauma. Priscilla is identifying the same patterns in her children that she witnessed with Elvis. She also tried to help her children in the same way as she did Elvis—efforts that inevitably failed. Identifying the flawed dynamic gradually led Priscilla to seek more constructive ways of breaking the cyclical pattern of addiction.

“I walked through the days like a zombie. I can barely remember them. As had happened when Elvis died, everything became a blur for me. Even today, when I’m asked about the details of Ben’s passing, my mind goes blank. I rely on those close to me to carry the burden of those memories for me.”

Priscilla uses figurative language and metaphor to capture her intense despair over her grandson Benjamin’s death by suicide. She compares herself to “a zombie” and says that her life was “a blur,” her mind was a “blank,” and her memories became a “burden.” The zombie imagery implies that although Priscilla was still moving and breathing, she felt like she was dead. The adjectives “blur” and “blank” suggests that Priscilla’s emotions were inhibiting her ability to feel and think. The “burden” metaphor evokes notions of weight and immobilization, which mirrors Priscilla’s existentialism.

“All my mother’s friends were gone by then. Her epitaph was simple: ‘Wife, Mother & Nana.’ my mother had a long life. She was ninety-five years old when she passed, sixty-eight years older than Ben when we lost him. It still wasn’t long enough for me.”

Priscilla meditates on loss and death after describing her mother Annie’s death. She compares her mother’s long life and her grandson’s short life, suggesting that no matter the duration of a loved one’s life, it never feels long enough. The passage’s tender and loving mood underscores Priscilla’s fondness for her late mother.

“The script considered his roots in the forces that shaped him—family, poverty, religion, Black culture. The darker parts of his life were alluded to but not focused on. Baz presented the conflicted idealist I had known. He told my own love story with sensitivity.”

Priscilla lauds Baz Luhrmann’s dramatization of Elvis’s life in his 2022 film, Elvis, as one of the most accurate representations of Elvis she had ever seen. In this passage, she explains why Luhrmann’s movie was so meaningful to her and so true to who Elvis was. Priscilla is dedicated to upholding Elvis’s legacy; the film helped her to do so in a way that felt authentic.

“I had reached the age where I wanted to reflect on my life and share it with others, the loyal fans who had supported me for decades. It would be a chance to clear things up, too, to separate the reality from myth. I want the truth to be out there, to respond directly to what people wonder about Elvis and me, about what they’ve heard.”

While Priscilla always wanted to live a life independent of Elvis, she also asserts her desire for people to know the real story about her and Elvis’s life. Part of this effort resulted in “An Evening with Priscilla Presley,” a way of connecting with “loyal fans,” clarifying “the reality from myth,” and managing the public’s understanding of Elvis and herself by directly answering their questions and sharing her story—thus navigating fame, public expectation, and legacy.

“How do you explain the loss of your child to others? How do you explain it to yourself? Every morning, I wake up and realize that a big part of me is gone forever. […] For so many years, she was my first thought in the morning and my last thought at night. We shared a deep and abiding love for the man who transformed both of our lives. We shared the wrenching pain of his departure. It never really went away.”

Priscilla’s use of rhetorical questions enacts her grief and sorrow over her daughter Lisa Marie’s death. Although it happened years ago, Priscilla holds that there is no way for her to ever get over losing her daughter. The rhetorical questions invite the reader into Priscilla’s intimate grieving process, without asking her to bear the onus of resolving her sorrow.