When it comes to music royalty, it doesn’t get much bigger than Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. The King of Pop and the only daughter of the legendary rock and roll artist Elvis Presley were only married for two years, but during that time, their high-profile relationship generated viral headlines before the term “viral” was even a thing. But what they called real love, some, including Lisa Marie’s mother, Priscilla Presley, called a marriage of convenience to distract from the investigation into Jackson’s child molestation charges.
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From their super secret wedding in the Dominican Republic to their shocking kiss at the VMAs, this is the story of the shocking and brief marriage between Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley.
How They Met
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson first met backstage at an Elvis Presley concert in Las Vegas. Lisa Marie was just seven years old, and a huge fan of Jackson, who was the lead singer of The Jackson Five at the time.
The Proposal
Presley reconnected with the “Thriller” singer in the early 1990s, while she was married to her first husband, musician Danny Keough, with whom she had two children. While Presley’s marriage to Keough was ending, a romance was brewing with Jackson, and the King of Pop let her know that he had some very specific plans for their future that he shared with her on a trip to Las Vegas.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m completely in love with you. I want us to get married and for you to have my children,’” Presley wrote in her memoir, ‘From Here to the Great Unknown.’
Presley said Jackson officially popped the question four months after they started dating.
The Wedding
The ink had barely dried on Presley’s divorce papers before she walked down the aisle with Jackson. The pair got married in an intimate ceremony in the Dominican Republic in May 1994. Presley was 26 at the time, and Jackson was 35. Although the location was beautiful, the guest list was small. The couple decided to keep things intimate to avoid attention from the press.
Presley released a statement confirming the nuptials to the press in August 1994.
“I am very much in love with Michael, I dedicate my life to being his wife. I understand and support him. We both look forward to raising a family,” the statement read in part.
She Thought He Was Misunderstood
Presley said Jackson did his best to make sure she got to know the real him – someone, she said, who was nothing like his public persona.
“He was very quick to, the first time I met him, sit me down and go, ‘Listen, I’m not gay. I know you think this. I know you think that,” she told Diane Sawyer in 2003
Presley said that the conversation pulled her in right away and made her see him as a normal person who was just misunderstood.
“I fell into this whole, you poor, sweet, misunderstood thing. I’m going to save you. I fell in love with him. I did,” she told Sawyer.
Priscilla Was Appalled
Lisa Marie was starting a new life as Mrs. Michael Jackson, but her mother, Priscilla Presley, was not on board, and she didn’t try to hide her feelings. She said she was “appalled” by the unlikely partnership, and thought Jackson was just trying to latch on to the Presley name for good publicity in light of an LAPD investigation into Jackson on child molestation charges.
“My lack of enthusiasm was obvious,” she wrote in her memoir, ‘Softly As I Leave You: Life After Elvis.”
A Bizarre Relationship
Priscilla Presley described her relationship with Jackson as “bizarre,” writing in her book that she felt the singer “wanted nothing to do with me.” Although they didn’t spend much time together, Elvis’ widow recalled feeling like Jackson was avoiding her at one of Lisa Marie’s parties, choosing to spend time with kids instead.
“I’ve Never Been That Happy Again”
We may never know if Lisa Marie was truly happy in her marriage to Michael. After their wedding, the couple spent their honeymoon at Disney World, an experience she described in her memoir as “truly remarkable.”
“I was actually so happy. I’ve never been that happy again,” she wrote in her memoir. “There was an energy there, something about him that was truly remarkable, something that I’ve never ever seen or felt in my entire life, other than with my dad. … I fell in love with him because he was normal.”
But in a 2007 interview with Marie Claire, Presley called leaving her first husband and marrying Michael Jackson “the biggest mistake of my life.”
Sealed With a Kiss
Michael Jackson knew that not everyone was convinced that his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley was legit, so he set out to silence the haters in a viral moment during the MTV Video Music Awards in September 1994.
“Nobody thought this would last,” he said before he planted a big kiss on his new bride’s lips that made the crowd go wild.
He Didn’t Have Much Experience
Although he was nearly ten years older than her, Presley said Jackson didn’t bring a lot of romantic experience into their marriage. In her memoir, Presley wrote that Jackson was still a virgin when the two got married.
“I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a think with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been physical except for a kiss,” she wrote. “He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once too, but nothing happened.”
That Diane Sawyer Interview
In June 1995, Jackson and Presley sat down for an in-depth interview with veteran journalist Diane Sawyer. The couple used the interview to clear up some of the rumors floating around their relationship, including denying the fact that the marriage was a plot to bring Jackson (and his money) into the Church of Scientology, of which Presley was a member at the time.
“I’m not going to marry anyone for any reason other than the fact that I’ve fallen in love with them,” Presley said. “And they can eat it if they want to think anything different.”
During that interview, Presley also confirmed that sex was very much a part of their marriage, adding that she and Jackson hoped to have children together someday.
“Do we have sex?’ Presley said. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“You Are Not Alone”
If the VMA kiss and the Diane Sawyer interview wasn’t enough to convince the public that their love was real, Presley also played a starring role in Jackson’s music video for “You Are Not Alone.” In the video, the couple shared some intimate scenes while wearing very few clothes. According to the video’s director, the newlyweds had a great time filming together.
“They had [an] innocent, playful relationship that I felt was a real relationship,” said director Wayne Isham. “So it all came off fine. It came off really well. I think she looks great in it.”
The Beginning of the End
Presley has stated that Jackson’s issues with addiction ultimately led to the end of their marriage, as she struggled with whether or not she wanted to have a child with someone she might eventually end up in a custody battle with.
“He had to make a decision. Was it the drugs and the vampires or me? And he pushed me away,” she told Oprah Winfrey in a 2010 interview.
Jackson and Presley finalized their divorce in January 1996.
Their Last Conversation
In a 2010 interview, Lisa Marie Presley told Oprah Winfrey that her last conversation with Jackson was in 2005, during which Jackson asked Presley if she still loved him.
“I told him I was indifferent,” she said. “He didn’t like that word. He cried.”
Michael Jackson passed away in 2009 at age 50. Lisa Marie Presley passed away in 2023 at age 54.
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