Priscilla Presley has opened up about why she decided to not remarry after the end of her six-year marriage to Elvis Presley.
The actress famously met the King of Rock and Roll when she was only 14 years old at a home the then-24-year-old singer had rented while serving in the US Army stationed in Germany in September 1959.
The couple tied the knot eight years later before welcoming their late daughter Lisa Marie nine months after their wedding. However, the pair's tempestuous marriage came to an end in 1973, with the 'Devil in Disguise' musician filing for divorce on his 38th birthday. This was just four years before his sudden death.
Although Presley has been separated from her ex-husband for four decades now, she has never walked down the aisle with another person despite having a string of relationships with men such as karate instructor Mike Stone, model Michael Edwards, and screenwriter and computer programmer Marco Garibaldi - whom she welcomed son Navarone Garibaldi with.
Speaking at a Q&A event in the South Point Casino in Las Vegas on Friday (November 3), the mother-of-two revealed that she never took the next step with any of her subsequent partners because she was worried about her famous ex's feelings.
"I just don't think that he could handle that," she said of the late rock music icon, as cited by PEOPLE.
While Priscilla made it clear that she wouldn't wed as long as Elvis was still alive, she also had her own reasons for not taking another husband, as evidenced by the fact that she was still unmarried in her early 30s.
"To be honest with you, I never wanted to marry after him. I never had any desire," the now-78-year-old confessed to the audience. "No one could ever match him."
Elsewhere in the Q&A chat, Priscilla explained that she and her famous husband chose not to have more children after welcoming Lisa Marie - who passed away at the age of 54 - because of how grueling the musician's schedule was.
"Elvis felt he had a very busy schedule and he did have a bit of guilt that he wasn't around that much when Lisa was younger," she told the audience.
"With his scheduling and his touring, he just felt he wasn't around enough to give a lot of attention to having another child," she added.
Watch the Priscilla trailer below:Priscilla recently had a chance to share more of her side of her romance with the 'Can't Help Falling in Love' legend via the new biopic, Priscilla.
The film is written and directed by Sofia Coppola and stars Cailee Spaeny as the titular character and Euphoria's Jacob Elordi as Elvis.
Ahead of the movie’s release, the real-life Priscilla was full of high praise for the production, revealing at the Venice Film Festival press conference that she was extremely pleased with the script's accuracy.
"It's very difficult to sit and watch a film about you, about your life, about your love," Priscilla said, per PEOPLE. "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."
However, her daughter was reportedly much less supportive of Sofia's project due to the focus on the controversial age gap and begged for the "shockingly vengeful" portrayal of her father to be changed before her death, as revealed in emails obtained by Variety.
Lisa Marie said: "As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?"
She added that she was concerned that her mom "isn’t seeing the nuance" of the screenplay "or realizing the way in which Elvis will be perceived" by viewers, stating: "I feel protective over my mother who has spent her whole life elevating my father’s legacy.
"I am worried she doesn’t understand the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have," she concluded.
Priscilla addressed the discussion surrounding the former couple's age gap in recent interviews and insisted that Elvis "respected the fact she was only 14 years old" when they first met.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, the co-founder and former chairperson of Elvis Presley Enterprises said that she believes her late husband was interested in her because she was a "listener" and revealed that they were not intimate until she got married at the age of 21.
"Elvis would pour his heart out to me in every way in Germany: his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother, which he never, ever got over," she explained. "People think, 'Oh, it was sex'. No, it wasn't. 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 line in thought, and that was our relationship," she added.
Priscilla is currently showing in US theaters and will be released globally in 2024.
