Lisa Marie Presley Rolling Stone Interview (2003)

He was very real with me off the bat. He immediately went into this whole explanation of what he knew people thought of him and what the truth was. […]

he was so not what I thought he was. He was very real — he was cursing, he was funny, and I was like, ‘Wow.…’ I fell into that ‘You have this whole Howard Hughes thing that goes on in the press, and you’re not anything like that.’

[…]

I think it worked for him to manipulate that image for a little while. The hyperbaric chamber thing and all that monkey shit and the elephant shit. It made him mysterious, and I think he thought that was cool. But then it backfired

[…]

I was always saying, ‘People wouldn’t think I was so crazy if they saw who the hell you really are: that you sit around and you drink and you curse and you’re fucking funny, and you have a bad mouth, and you don’t have that high voice all the time. I don’t know why you think that works for you, because it doesn’t anymore.’ […]

there’s probably only five or six people, not including kids, who have seen who he really is. But when you do …” She smiles. “He didn’t get where he is because he’s an idiot. You see a real person who’s very much the opposite of what he was presenting.” […]

“He called me a lot,” she says. “Confided in me a lot. Which could be very manipulative — I don’t know.

[…]

Jackson kissed her fully on the lips.

“That was not my idea, by the way,” she says. “I was terrified. It was his manager’s idea. I thought it was stupid. All of a sudden I became part of a PR machine.”

It seemed like a blatant gimmick to prove — to start with — that he was straight. […]

“I was pissed. I just felt like I was being used at that point.” She was then told that he was going to sing to her and that he had a surprise for her. “I remember my whole look was: ‘Don’t you come anywhere fucking near me — we haven’t spoken in a month.’ And he got it. He didn’t come over. I talked to him later and he said, ‘I saw the look on your face, and I knew that if I walked up to you, I didn’t know what you were going to do (to) me.’

[…]

But I did fall in love with him. I can’t say what his intentions were, but I can tell you mine was that I absolutely fell in love with him […]

I don’t know how much he can access love, really. I think as much as he can love somebody he might have loved me. It was always like a mind that was constantly working. It was a scary thing — somebody who’s constantly at work, calculating, calculating, manipulating. And he scared me like that.

Source: Heath, C. (2003, April 17). Our Lost Lisa Marie Presley Interview Is One Hell of a Read. Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 10, 2024, from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/lisa-marie-presley-rolling-stone-cover-story-1234660576/.

Lisa Marie Presley primetime Interview (2003)

It’s unfortunate that not a lot of people know who he really is.
He doesn’t let anybody see it.

And he has some idea about how he should represent himself in the public that he thinks works for him.

Which is the sort of meek, victimy, quiet thing that he does. Which is not even like how he really is.

So, he doesn’t let a lot of people see that.

When he wants to lock into you, when he wants to intrigue you or capture you or, you know, whatever he wants to do with you, he can do it. He’s very capable of doing that.

He was very quick to, the first time I met him, sit me down and go listen, I’m not gay, I know you think this, I know you think that, and started cursing, started you know being a normal person.

And I was like wow.

So I get caught up in that I am pulled in right away. Like wow. You’re so misunderstood oh my god you’re this guy.

I fell into this whole you poor sweet misunderstood man I’m gonna save you. I fell into that. I fell in love with him. I did.

Source: ABC (2003). “Primetime Live” Lisa Marie Presley, Interview with Diane Sawyer, Episode aired July 10, 2003.

Lisa Marie Presley Myspace blog

Friday, June 26, 2009

He Knew.

Years ago Michael and I were having a deep conversation about life in general.

I can’t recall the exact subject matter but he may have been questioning me about the circumstances of my Fathers Death.

At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, “I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did.”

I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.

14 years later I am sitting here watching on the news an ambulance leaves the driveway of his home, the big gates, the crowds outside the gates, the coverage, the crowds outside the hospital, the Cause of death and what may have led up to it and the memory of this conversation hit me, as did the unstoppable tears.

A predicted ending by him, by loved ones and by me, but what I didn’t predict was how much it was going to hurt when it finally happened.

The person I failed to help is being transferred right now to the LA County Coroners office for his Autopsy.

All of my indifference and detachment that I worked so hard to achieve over the years has just gone into the bowels of hell and right now I am gutted.

I am going to say now what I have never said before because I want the truth out there for once.

Our relationship was not “a sham” as is being reported in the press. It was an unusual relationship yes, where two unusual people who did not live or know a “Normal life” found a connection, perhaps with some suspect timing on his part. Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much.

I wanted to “save him” I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened.

His family and his loved ones also wanted to save him from this as well but didn’t know how and this was 14 years ago. We all worried that this would be the outcome then.

At that time, In trying to save him, I almost lost myself.

He was an incredibly dynamic force and power that was not to be underestimated.

When he used it for something good, It was the best and when he used it for something bad, It was really, REALLY bad.

Mediocrity was not a concept that would even for a second enter Michael Jackson’s being or actions.

I became very ill and emotionally/ spiritually exhausted in my quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior and from the awful vampires and leeches he would always manage to magnetize around him.

I was in over my head while trying.

I had my children to care for, I had to make a decision.

The hardest decision I have ever had to make, which was to walk away and let his fate have him, even though I desperately loved him and tried to stop or reverse it somehow.

After the Divorce, I spent a few years obsessing about him and what I could have done different, in regret.

Then I spent some angry years at the whole situation.

At some point, I truly became Indifferent, until now.

As I sit here overwhelmed with sadness, reflection and confusion at what was my biggest failure to date, watching on the news almost play by play The exact Scenario I saw happen on August 16th, 1977 happening again right now with Michael (A sight I never wanted to see again) just as he predicted, I am truly, truly gutted.

Any ill experience or words I have felt towards him in the past has just died inside of me along with him.

He was an amazing person and I am lucky to have gotten as close to him as I did and to have had the many experiences and years that we had together.

I desperately hope that he can be relieved from his pain, pressure and turmoil now.

He deserves to be free from all of that and I hope he is in a better place or will be.

I also hope that anyone else who feels they have failed to help him can be set free because he hopefully finally is.

The World is in shock but somehow he knew exactly how his fate would be played out some day more than anyone else knew, and he was right


I really needed to say this right now, thanks for listening.


~LMP

Lisa Marie Presley/Riley Keogh: From Here To The Great Unknown (2024)

he was really subdued and extremely nice.
[…]
Michael had an energy and a presence, and that week he was fully allowing me into his world, into his mind. […] He knew that I understood him, and we really connected because I didn’t judge him.

[…]
Nothing happened physically, but the connection was so insanely strong. […] He wasn’t that high-pitched, calculated thing. That was an act.

[…]
He told me he was still a virgin.
[…]
When he decided to first kiss me, he just did it. He was instigating everything. […] I had thought that maybe we wouldn’t do anything until we got married, but he said, “I’m not waiting!””

[…]
I was actually so happy.

I’ve never been that happy again.
[…]

Michael was an amazing conversationalist. He was someone who never wanted to talk about himself […]. He was super interested in people, and could really lift them up. […] There was an energy there, something about him that was truly remarkable, something that I’ve never ever seen or felt in my entire life, other than with my dad.

I feel really, really lucky that he let me in.

I fell in love with him because he was normal, just fucking normal. His normal was a side that no one saw.

[…]
No one had ever seen him with his guard down. […] With everyone else, he would snap his fingers if somebody brought up anything he didn’t like—snap, and you’re out.

[…]
He respected how and what I felt
[…]

Well, he loved that part of me until we started fighting and I aimed my honesty at him, which was at the end.
[…]

We went back and forth for years.

He had wanted me to have his children so badly and I didn’t want to. I knew he ultimately wanted to be the only caretaker of the children. Michael wanted to control things. He didn’t want a mother influence, or any other influence, in fact.

I figured that Michael would have me have the children and then dump me, get me out of the picture. I could read him like a clock. I understood everything, and I knew everything about him because all we did was bare our souls to one another. I knew his nature, and he was very controlling and calculating.

Source: Presley, L. M., & Keough, R. (2024). From Here To The Great Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Random House Publishing Group.