The King of Pop and the daughter of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley dominated the headlines in the 1990s. But the marriage was doomed.
When Lisa Marie Presley first met her future husband Michael Jackson, she was only seven years old. Her father, rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley, took her to a concert by the musician in 1975 and introduced him to her. But it was to be another two decades before their paths crossed again.
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson: a tumultuous marriage
When they found each other in 1993, Lisa Marie was still married to her first husband and father of her two older children, Danny Keough. And Michael Jackson? He was confronted with allegations of child abuse for the first time. Lisa Marie became one of his greatest supports, even as Michael Jackson fell on the pills. During a phone call, Jackson jokingly asked Presley if she would marry him. “Michael so appreciated Lisa’s calming effect on him that he asked a question during the phone call that surprised them both,” wrote Jackson’s biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli.
Presley divorced Keough and traveled to the Dominican Republic with Jackson. The two exchanged vows in a fifteen-minute ceremony. However, the public only found out about the wedding months later. “My married name is Mrs. Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson. My marriage to Michael Jackson took place in a private ceremony outside of the United States a few weeks ago,” Presley stated in August 1994.
Kiss at the MTV Video Music Awards
After keeping their marriage largely a secret, Presley and Jackson surprised the crowd at the MTV Video Music Awards that fall. “I’m very happy to be here. Nobody thought it would take so long,” Michael Jackson said on stage, kissing his newlyweds tenderly on the lips. In a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Presley admitted she didn’t like the move. “He knew I didn’t like that. His hand was blue when we got off the stage. I had squeezed it so hard. But as his wife, I had to do things like that,” she told the presenter.
The odd onstage kiss fueled rumors that the couple’s marriage was a PR stunt. As if to prove him wrong, Michael Jackson hired his wife to film the video for You Are Not Alone. The pictures that showed the King of Pop with his wife were legendary, smooching and dripping wet.
Daughter of Elvis Presley
Lisa Marie Presley: A Life of Ups and Dramatic Downs
In the end, nothing helped and the relationship failed. After the separation in December 1995, the divorce followed in 1996. In a 2003 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Presley revealed that she wanted to “save” Jackson. “You get sucked into this ‘You poor, misunderstood person, you…’ I’m a sucker for that. I got into this whole ‘I’ll save you’ thing,” she explained. “The only thing I got out of it was a shitstorm. And I got through it. Now people are like, ‘You seem sane, you seem pretty sane – what the hell was all that about?’ It put a stigma on me, ‘What the hell was she thinking?’ stigma,” Presley said.
Sources: / /
Source: Stern
I am a 24-year-old writer and journalist who has been working in the news industry for the past two years. I write primarily about market news, so if you’re looking for insights into what’s going on in the stock market or economic indicators, you’ve come to the right place. I also dabble in writing articles on lifestyle trends and pop culture news.
