Priscilla Presley Clears Air About Dating Elvis at 14: ‘I Never Had Sex With Him’

One of the most anticipated movies at this year’s Venice Film Festival is Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s latest about the relationship between Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny) and rock and roll legend Elvis Presley (Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi), who met when she was 14 and he was 24 while he was serving in the Army and stationed in Germany. Coppola’s film does not hold back in its depiction of Elvis’s grooming of young Priscilla, as well as his controlling (and sometimes violent) behavior toward her, plying her with pills, throwing chairs at her, and at one point nearly sexually assaulting her.

And those attending the film’s press conference got a surprise: Priscilla Presley herself was in attendance, and though she wasn’t officially participating in the on-stage Q&A, fielded a question from the crowd.

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“It’s very difficult to sit and watch a film about you, and about your life, and about your love, and…,” Presley trailed off, tears streaming down her face, “I think Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework. We spoke a couple of times, and I really put everything out for her that I could.”

Presley, who lost her daughter with Elvis, Lisa Marie, earlier this year, serves as an executive producer on the film, which is adapted from her memoir Elvis and Me.

“It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me, and why, and I really do think [it was] because I was more of a listener,” Presley explained. “Elvis would pour his heart out to me every way in Germany — his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother, which he never, ever got over — and I was the person who really, really sat there to listen, and to comfort him. That was really our connection. Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life, not in numbers. 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, and very loving, but he also respected the fact that I was 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought, and that was our relationship.”

She continued: “I don’t know why he put so much trust in me, but he did. And I never, ever, ever told anyone that I was seeing him, and that was another issue that he loved: I never gave him up in any way. I never told anyone at school I was seeing him. We built a relationship, and that relationship went on until, yes, I left. And it wasn’t because I didn’t love him — he was the love of my life — it was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me, and I think any woman can relate to that. But it didn’t mar our relationship. We still remained very close, and of course we had our daughter, and I made sure that he saw her all the time. It was like we never left each other — so I want to make that clear.”

Priscilla will be released in theaters on Oct. 27.

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