Priscilla Presley Opens Up About Elvis 45 Years After His Death

This past Tuesday marked 45 years since the legendary performer Elvis Presley passed away. To mark this solemn occasion, his ex-wife Priscilla Presley spoke out, opening up to the TODAY Show about Elvis and his legacy. 

Priscilla Out To Preserve Elvis’ Legacy

People Magazine reported that Priscilla, 77, said that her goal in preserving the legacy of Elvis is to “carry out and give him the things that he always wanted to do in his life.”  

“Anything he wanted to do or wished to do as far as in life, I want to try to get that to happen,” she explained. “It’s a big responsibility.” 

One example of this is that Elvis always dreamed of singing in front of an orchestra, and Priscilla fulfilled this in 2015’s “If I Can Dream” compilation album with Elvis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The night before the anniversary of Elvis’s death, Priscilla was joined by over 30,000 fans and supporters for a candle-light vigil honoring him.

“To see the amount of people that still come to see Elvis is unbelievable,” she said.

Watch Priscilla talk more about this in the video below.

Related: Elvis Looks So Heartbroken In Video Recorded After Divorce From Priscilla

Priscilla Talks Movie ‘Elvis’ 

Priscilla also talked about the new movie Elvis, which was directed by Baz Luhrmann and tells the story of Elvis’s life. 

“I mean what a great movie,” she said. “Baz Luhrmann I have to say is a genius, I don’t know anyone else who could’ve done this movie like he did.”

Priscilla went on to say that she had initially been nervous about Luhrmann making this movie, so she invited him over to her house and proceeded to spend hours talking to him.

“He put me a little at ease but I still didn’t know how it was gonna come out,” she recalled. 

Priscilla Struggled To Watch Parts Of ‘Elvis’

While Priscilla loved the movie, she confessed that some parts of it were difficult to watch. She specifically struggled to watch the arguments between Elvis and Colonel Parker, his longtime manager. 

“I lived the arguments that they had,” she said. “I lived Elvis trying to explain that he didn’t want to do the movies with all the girls and the beaches and everything, that he really wanted to do serious things so living that with him and then watching the movie brought back a lot of memories.”

Despite this, Priscilla said that she doesn’t hold a grudge against the Colonel, who was portrayed by Tom Hanks in the film. 

“There were two colonels, there was the colonel who was the manager and the colonel who was very very sweet and very very nice,” she explained, adding that his promise to Elvis to make him “a million dollars” sometimes got the best of him.

Check out a trailer for Elvis below. 

Related: Nancy Sinatra Reveals What It Was Really Like To Work With Elvis Presley

Priscilla Praises Austin Butler

This comes after Priscilla praised Austin Butler for his portrayal of Elvis in an interview back in June. 

“Austin was just unbelievable,” she said at the time. “As I was watching it, actually, I was going wow, this is a movie that he would have really loved. Showing who he was, what he was striving for, what his dreams were.”

While attending the Met Gala back in May, Priscilla said that Elvis is a “movie for everyone.”

“Even the people who’ve heard stories about Elvis before, they’re gonna learn something,” she continued. 

It’s been 45 years since Elvis passed away, but he is still missed by millions of fans to this day. God bless Priscilla for opening up about him at a time of year that must typically be extremely difficult for her.