Entertainment- Priscilla Presley said she was "very" concerned about Lisa Marie's marriage to Michael Jackson.
- The mother thought Jackson's respect for her late husband Elvis Presley might've factored into the relationship.
In a new interview with Piers Morgan on the UK's "Talk TV," Priscilla Presley opened up about her late daughter Lisa Marie Presley's nearly two-year marriage to Michael Jackson.
Priscilla Presley told Morgan that she was "very" concerned about her daughter (who was the only child of Elvis Presley) when she got married to Jackson.
"He loved Elvis or respected Elvis, so I always felt that having the name, associating with the name with his daughter…I was concerned," Priscilla Presley said in the interview.
Priscilla Presley tells Piers Morgan she was 'very concerned' about her daughter Lisa Marie marrying Michael Jackson, describing how he would disappear for days.
— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) November 2, 2023
"I always felt it [was about] having the name."@Cilla_Presley | @piersmorgan | @TalkTV | #PMU pic.twitter.com/Cc6t00JWPb
She worried that Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley because of his intrigue over Elvis, and said she shared her concerns with her daughter.
Priscilla Presley also recalled Lisa Marie Presley being "concerned" about Jackson during their marriage, too. "She said, 'I never see him. He is always gone.'" Priscilla Presley said her daughter told her Jackson would be away for three or four days before he called her.
But the 78-year-old said she "never really got to know" Jackson enough to discern if her suspicions about his motivation for the marriage were correct, she told Morgan, per The Daily Mail.
When Lisa Marie Presley (who died from complications after bariatric surgery in January), married Jackson in 1994, he was facing accusations of child sexual abuse, which largely surfaced about a year earlier. The former couple married in the Dominican Republic and kept their union secret for three months. They divorced in early 1996.
In 2007, Lisa Marie Presley told Marie Claire that leaving her first husband Danny Keough for Jackson in 1994 was "probably the biggest mistake of my life." She didn't name either man in the interview.
After Jackson died in 2009, Lisa Marie Presley told Oprah Winfrey that although she had real feelings for Jackson, she was always aware that he was masterful at manipulating the media.
"I always confused that manipulation thinking that it meant he didn't love me," Lisa Marie Presley told Winfrey at the time. "But I understand it better now. The manipulation was a survival tactic for him."
Her confusing marriage to Jackson was far from the biggest heartbreak Lisa Marie Presley faced in her life. Her son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020, three years before her own death.
In her interview with Morgan, Priscilla Presley teared up after recalling her grandson's death and sharing that her daughter had suicidal ideations after Benjamin died.