The Heartbreaking Reason Priscilla Presley Didn't Get Married Again

Priscilla Presley was married to Elvis Presley from 1967 through 1973. The two had something of a fairytale love affair, with the King sweeping a young 14-year-old Priscilla off her feet. When Priscilla turned 21, she and Elvis tied the knot and the two welcomed their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, about a year later. Sadly, the Presleys' young love didn't last, and Priscilla made the decision to divorce Elvis about three years later. Although Priscilla went on to date other men over the course of her adult life, she decided never to remarry — for a heartbreaking reason.

For one thing, she told Elvis she wouldn't marry again while he was alive. "I just don't think that he could handle that," she said at a 2023 event at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas, according to People magazine. But even after his death, there was a very specific reason why Priscilla never took another husband. "To be honest with you, I never wanted to marry after him. I never had any desire. No one could ever match him," she explained. 

Priscilla went on to date Michael Edwards and Robert Kardashian before finding love with Marco Garibaldi. Although she welcomed a child with him (a son named Navarone), they never married. She and Garibaldi eventually went their separate ways after more than two decades together. 

There was something undeniably special between Priscilla Presley and Elvis Presley, and even though their marriage didn't last, the love they had for one another certainly stood the test of time. Given this, it's no surprise that Priscilla was left completely devastated when Elvis died in 1977. "It was just too hard to believe," she told Hoda Kotb on "Today" in 2018. 

In an interview with ET in early 2023, Priscilla remembered receiving a call from Elvis' road manager Joe Esposito, who delivered the tragic news. "It was like waking up from a nightmare, hoping to wake up and say, 'This is a joke,'" she recalled. The time that followed proved to be very challenging for the actor. "I felt emptiness for months after that," she told ET.

These days, Elvis is never too far from Priscilla's mind, even more than 40 years after his death. "I truly cherish the great times. As you grow up, there are always fears and insecurities, but as you get older you understand it all," she told People magazine in 2021. It's clear that Priscilla's bond with Elvis was unbreakable, even after their split due to "mutual infidelity," according to Men's Health.

During a press conference at the Venice Film Festival in the summer of 2023, Priscilla Presley spoke about her late ex-husband. "Elvis would pour his heart out to me, 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," she said, according to CNN. Their divorce may have legally split them up, but Elvis and Priscilla would be in each other's lives until the very end. "We had our daughter, and I made sure that he saw her all the time. It was like we never left each other," she explained. She's always spoken very highly of him in the years since his death. 

As for why Priscilla and Elvis didn't have more children together, it seems as though his busy schedule was to blame. "He did have a bit of guilt that he wasn't around that much when Lisa was younger," Priscilla said during her recent Q&A (via People). "With his scheduling and his touring, he just felt he wasn't around enough to give a lot of attention to having another child." In 2023, the former couple's only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, died. She was buried near her father's grave at his former home, Graceland, located in Tennessee.