Elvis Presley had a twin brother
Elvis Presley (1954), (Michael Oaks Archive/Getty Images)
Many people may not know that Elvis Presley had an identical twin brother who was stillborn. According to The History Channel, Elvis Presley arrived about 35 minutes after giving birth to his twin, Jesse Garon Presley.
Her brother was buried in an unmarked grave the following day. While Elvis grew up as an only child all his life, he often talked about his twin brother. His family was mired in poverty, and in 1938 his father, Vernon Presley, was sentenced to three years in prison for forging a $4 check, although he spent less than a year behind bars.
The family later moved to Memphis in search of better opportunities, with Elvis attending Humes High School. Interestingly, he failed a music class during this time. He was the first member of his immediate family to graduate from high school and worked as a mechanic before beginning his musical career in July 1954 recording the song That’s All Right in 1954.
Elvis Presley, Priscilla Anne Beaulieu (1967), (Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images)
When he was drafted into the army, Elvis Presley was 24 years old and was already quite famous. While in Friedberg, Germany, Elvis met Priscilla Beaulieu at a party hosted by her stepfather – a US Air Force officer – in September 1959, according to a biography. She was only 14 at the time, and while it was a shame that today was happening, at the time it didn’t cause much public outcry.
That’s partly because the star kept his relationship with her as private as possible. After leaving Germany in 1960, they continued their relationship through letters, until 1962 when they persuaded Priscilla’s parents to let her move to Memphis and finish high school from there.
When she arrived in Memphis, she lived with Elvis Presley’s stepmother and father while she was in high school, and to keep up with Elvis’ late-night and busy schedule, she started taking sleeping pills. and amphetamines. It was also reported that he felt compelled to marry Priscilla in a number of ways, and they eventually married in 1967 in Las Vegas. Priscilla immediately fell pregnant and gave birth to Lisa Marie Presley exactly 9 months after her wedding day.
Elvis Presley had many affairs, as did Priscilla Presley
Elvis Presley, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley, Lisa Marie Presley (1968), (Michael Oaks Archive/Getty Images)
Even when he was courting Priscilla Presley, Elvis Presley had relationships with several women. In her book Elvis And Me, Priscilla Presley explains some of the affairs she knew before and after his marriage, such as his relationship with Viva Las Vegas star Ann Margaret. In fact, Elvis Presley requested a trial period to separate from Priscilla during her seventh month of pregnancy, and while it was short-lived, the decision stemmed from his concern about the impact of parenthood on his career.
Priscilla writes that after the birth of Lisa Marie, Elvis was reluctant to have sex with her:
“He mentioned before we got married that he wasn’t able to have sex with a woman who had a baby.”
This made him sleep with other women as he had before his marriage, prompting Priscilla Presley to seek solace elsewhere. When she closed her eyes as long as possible, Priscilla said that in the end there was infidelity on both sides. She was linked to her karate instructor, Mike Stone, as well as the owner of a dance school.
This does not mean that the spouses did not love each other. “I didn’t shoot him because I didn’t love him. He was the love of my life, but I had to try the world,” Priscilla Presley said in a 2016 interview. The couple stayed in each other’s lives when they were parents to Lisa Marie.
Elvis Presley was addicted to drugs
Elvis was already reliant on amphetamines and barbiturates to get past his strict schedule as a rock ‘n’ roll star in his early days. The amphetamines helped him stay awake, while the barbiturates helped him relax. According to LiveAbout, Elvis became addicted to various types of prescription drugs over the years, and his manager at the time, Colonel Tom Parker, played a large role in promoting these drugs. But in 1976, Elvis Presley allegedly had a doctor prescribe him all the pills he wanted, People reported in a 1980 story. The doctor, Dr. Nikopoulos, prescribed him more than 12,000 pills over the last 20 months. His life according to the story.
“I’ve never seen a human being in my life do drugs like Elvis did,” Presley’s half-brother David Stanley recalled to People magazine. I’m not talking about banned drugs, I’m talking about prescription drugs. Some doctors were looking for great money.
Drug addiction was such an integral part of his life that, according to Town & Country, “several doctors involved have claimed that the musician’s death should have been attributed to a toxic combination of drugs.” His toxicology reports were published a few weeks after his death “containing high doses of opium Dilaudid, Percodan, and Demerol, as well as Quaaludes and Codeine.”
While his official death report stated that his heart disease was the main cause of death and that his pills played no role, it was only later that two pathologists talked about covering up the true cause of his death. A PBS article tackled this issue with the question, “What would a rock star who was awarded a special Office of Drugs and Dangerous Drugs badge by President Richard Nixon look like to have died of a steroid overdose?”
