Sofia Coppola’s new Priscilla Presley biopic, Priscilla, premiered at the Venice Film Festival this past weekend. Because its studio A24 was able to meet the unions’ demands for a fair contract, the actors in Priscilla can promote it, so they’ve been doing all the glitzy premieres and photo calls (though I must admit that I think Cailee Spaeny’s stylist is not playing to her strengths). Early reviews have been raving so far, praising both Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi for their performances as well as Sofia’s directing. Priscilla Presley attended the premiere and press events, since she’s an executive producer and was very involved in the movie. At a press conference, Priscilla spoke from the audience–she wasn’t on the panel–about complicated feelings that came up after seeing the movie. She said it was very difficult to watch, but praised Sofia for her work. And she talked about Elvis, too, saying that their initial connection was an emotional one, rather than physical. Elvis, 24, “poured his heart” out to Priscilla, who was 14 when they met. She says they “never had sex” but I think she means they never had sex while she was underage.
Priscilla Presley wasn’t on the press conference panel for Sofia Coppola’s Venice competition film Priscilla, but she spoke from the audience, holding back tears as she gave an emotional tribute to the film and opened up about her late husband, Elvis Presley.
“It’s very difficult to watch a film about you and about your life and about your love,” she said. “But Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework. And I really put everything out for her that I could.”
Speaking about Elvis, whom she met when she was 14, Presley said it was “very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me and why,” adding that she considered herself a listener in their relationship.
“Elvis would pour his heart out to me. His hopes, his fears, his loss of his mother. And I was the person who really sat there to listen and to comfort him. That was really our connection. Even though I was 14, I was older in life than in years,” she said. “And that was the attraction. People think, ‘Oh, it was sex, it was this.’ Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving. But he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought and that was our relationship.”
I feel for Priscilla. There are universal elements to her relationship with Elvis, but it was also a singular experience. It’s possible she’s protecting her late ex-husband when she insists that they were not intimate until she was of age. But even if we take her at her word, and Elvis didn’t touch her until she was a legal adult, it’s still a relationship with a grossly imbalanced power dynamic and a form of grooming on its own. If Priscilla chooses to romanticize it, I understand why. Sometimes that’s the only way people have of coping with the things that happened to them. That’s one of the things I know I used to do. You can’t come to terms with how deeply somebody hurt you so you choose to tell yourself it wasn’t so bad. And she was probably right about one thing–when they met, she probably was the only person around Elvis who truly wanted nothing from him but his time, to listen to him and comfort him. I believe that, and it’s sad that she gave her love and attention so freely to someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t reciprocate (for a host of reasons, including their age difference, his infidelity, and his addictions). After spending her young life as a supporting character to a controlling, wildly famous man, I’m glad Priscilla has her moment now to share her perspective of this time in her life.
photos credit: UPPA/Photoshot / Avalon, MPP / Avalon and Getty
She also said that Elvis is the love of her life and that they continued to love each other even after the divorce
I’m not sure I can believe her. She has been milking the memory of Elvis for years. Yes, she did save his estate, but then she fought their daughter over it. Elvis undeniably was a huge talent, but no 24 year old man should show interest in a 14 year old girl. There is no way to spin that.
I was convinced at one point I loved my abuser too (and my abuser and I were both young adults). For a while. It helped me cope with my loss and degradation to think I was somehow in on it with him and in love. Luckily I got clarity and help.
Such a mind**k, I have sympathy for Priscilla as she was so very young, but she is a trauma bonded and biased unreliable narrator. She’s kind of frozen in time in some ways
Elvis Presley
Charlie Chaplin
Brigitte Macron
Jerry Lee Lewis
Woody Allen
And the list goes on, groomers.
Charlie Chaplin wasn’t a groomer, he was a rapist. He raped underage girls and then married them to avoid going to prison. It ‘s for this reason that he has been married many times.
Add King Charles to the list.
Add Rick Springfield and Linda Blair. He was 25 and she was 15.
Samantha Taylor-Johnson
he was 18, no?
You left out Celine Dion’s groomer, oh and Steven Tyler too.
Ted Nugent
Don Johnson (married Melanie at 16?)
Roman Polanski
Jack Nicholson
Priscilla can remember her relationship however she likes. It was hers. But I certainly wouldn’t want any 14 year old to be in that position and it doesn’t make Elvis look like less of a skeeze to me.
Making a 14 year old your confidant and therapist is absolutely grooming. That’s telling a kid who no doubt desperately wants to be grown up that they’re mature and special and important. What else would it be?
Priscilla has spent decades white washing Elvis’ behavior. The relationship was totally inappropriate in every way.
Actually, thinking about it, you know who had a similar marriage story and subsequently warped view of grooming? Queen Elizabeth II…
They were both really jammed up at a very young age and then did precisely nothing to do better or heal.
The power balance between Liz and Phil was completely different. She held the cards.
Queen Elizabeth met Philip when she was like 13 or 14. He was the only man she’d ever ‘known’. She was not his only partner. It is well documented how much of a struggle those two had balancing the idea of a woman in charge publicly with Phil’s demand for more control at home. But sure, it’s completely different.
But to be clearer than I evidently was, meeting their older spouses when they were young teenagers and having that be the defining relationship of their lives really did a weird number on them and their understanding of grooming. You can see that in how both of them failed to deal with the topic as they got older.
Philip and Elizabeth aren’t really applicable here to me because he didn’t really want to marry her. “Uncle Dickie” Mountbatten basically sat him down and said she was the best option she had because of who he was as dispossessed royalty, who she was and how she was so in love with him.
Peter Townsend absolutely groomed Margaret though.
I don’t think Philip was dating Elzabeth when she was 13. The age difference is only 5 years. He probably only found her attractive later on, like the older brother’s friend who meets someone’s kid sister at 13, but looks at her with different eyes much later on. The 5 year age gap makes that relationship similar to most other relationships in real life where a meeting occurs in early life, but the guy doesn’t look at the girl until she actually matures ( like those Russian pairs figure skating partnership/ marriages?)
I bet Phillip was dating a bunch of other girls his own age when he was 18. I can’t picture him waiting around for Elizabeth when she was 13.
Word. And she’s still repeating his gaslighting about her being older than her years, the line of literally every man grooming an underage girl. No honey he wanted someone young and malleable, to live only for him and have no identity of her own. To her credit, she got out at some point, but how do you ever get out from under the shadow of someone like Elvis?
Yeah! I have some sympathy for her because that is no doubt a lot to reckon with. And even with all the therapy and working on herself in the world (which I kind of doubt happened!), it’d be a lot to expect her to completely overhaul her outlook on her own life. My sympathy has limits though, when it comes defending what is obviously and outrageously unacceptable behavior. Priscilla’s version of events is not a healthy one.
ITA. She’s been in the shadow of one of the most iconic names of all time since she was 14, so how do you ever develop your own identity in that context? But she’s also had immense wealth and privilege at her fingertips most of her life, so how has she never heard from a therapist that 14 year olds are never “old” for their age? Brain development simply doesn’t allow for that. Someone like Greta Thunberg might have an advanced awareness of certain things, but even she wasn’t old enough to make mature life decisions at 14. NO ONE IS.
The rock stars in the 70’s used to have girls’ parents give them legal guardianship so they wouldn’t get arrested for going across state lines with them.
27 year old Steve Tyler adopted his 16 year old girlfriend to do this, just awful.
Why is steven Tyler not canceled?!
That didn’t end with the 70s.
He was a pedo and groomed her. No adult man has any business “confiding” in a teenager. But her whole existence and income has been wrapped around her association with this man, so she needs to soften how utterly despicable it all was in order for the money to keep coming in (even though she’s no longer profiting from the estate). And I don’t believe he did not sleep with her until she was of age. He sex trafficked her to another state so she could live with him as a teen and it would be “legal,” and her parents forced him to marry her. There is nothing romantic about this story and his disgusting penchant for pre-teen and teen girls. And he wasn’t that great a singer and was a culturally appropriating mediocre dancer.
I think you just killed Elvis all over again. RIP, Elvis. (And I don’t disagree.)
There is no doubt that their relationship was inappropriate and that he groomed her. He may not have even realized he was doing this but that’s not an excuse. This is where her parents needed to step in and say “no sir. You are too old to be having the meaning of life chats with our 14 year old daughter.” And Elvis couldn’t find a woman his own age or at least of legal age to “talk” to? Creep behavior.
Her parents were either intimidated or bought off by “the King”.
Yeah that’s the part of the story I just cannot comprehend. Where the F where her parents in this? How could they ever justify allowing their young daughter to move to another country to live with a rock & roll singer?!? Your daughter is a CHILD. I’ve never seen any photos of Priscilla with her parents after she got married. I wonder if there are any or if her parents here simply jettisoned after she became a Presley…
I think it’s ok for Priscilla to say that looking back on it the relationship was inappropriate.
I appreciate the sensitivity and kindness given in this post. However, I do see this as grooming behaviour and wildly inappropriate for an adult to expect a 14 year old to have the emotional depth and maturity to be a confidant. Also, it was a wildly different time, where these boundaries were not understood, let alone questioned. My grandmother left home at 14 and was considered “grown up” and an adult. So, at the time, I don’t think those who had Priscilla’s best interest at heart saw this as a problem. They probably saw this as a good thing, as someone who could be responsible and care for her. Times have changed, for the better, and thankfully women have more agency.
Can you say, “grooming”, kids?
Yah no. I have a 12 yr/o… 14 isn’t too far off… It’s just gross. Idc if it was a different time, 14 years old is a child.
I remember reading a biography about Priscilla when I was in 8th grade. At the time, I was about the same age as Priscilla was when she started dating Elvis, so it was unsettling to read about how she was exploited.
When she says that they didn’t have sex, I think she is referring solely to intercourse.
Yeah, there is no way he waited 4 years to have sex with her in some way or another.
In her book Elvis and Me, IIRC, Priscilla implies that they did “everything but” intercourse while they were dating. That way they could tell themselves they were “saving themselves” for marriage.
Their relationship was bizarre from start to finish. He stopped sleeping with her after she had Lisa Marie. He had soooo many issues. It’s totally understandable how he died so young.
They cal all explain and re-frame all they want but there’s nothing about this that isn’t really creepy.
Good thing he lived when he did, this behavior wouldn’t fly today.
He’d probably be DM 13 year old Millie Bobby Brown if he was.
Millie Bobby Brown’s family are entirely financially dependent on her, it is so sad, another Britney Spears.
The grooming is creepy, the child bride thing was creepy, and the part where they never had sex again after she became a mother is 🤯. That’s pathological.
Elvis was never a well man.
I don’t know why I am side-eyeing Sofia C for whitewashing this whole story. She is like a Goop for indie cool girls. But ——- who is that 10 foot tall man in the pics?
Reading the reviews, they don’t suggest Sofia whitewashed anything.
I think that’s Jacob elordi and that crazy height difference is completely throwing me off kilter. Like he’s not even in the same frame as the women!
One word for this “grooming”.
He may have been 10 years old than her, but he was just as immature (not an excuse for what he did, BTW). He had a somewhat disturbing relationship with his mother, and I think he was obsessed with the idea of being a good, Christian, Southern son. Having Priscilla around — and refraining from having intercourse with her (they did everything BUT) — made him feel self-righteous, proper, like a gentleman, someone who could make his mom proud. When he was away from Priscilla, on movie sets or tours, he had relationships with women his age and older, but they didn’t count because they were outside the home, where his devoted teen bride-to-be waited for him.
As @Brassy Rebel said, he was not a well man.
I know she can’t see it this way, but she was definitely groomed. I side eye elvis for sure