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Elvis Presley met his future wife in 1959. She was 14 years old.

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When Elvis Presley first met Priscilla Beaulieu, he was 24 years old. She was just 14. 

He was stationed in Germany at the time and was grieving the death of his mother. 

Priscilla would later tell The Guardian their relationship came at a time "when he was lonely... He was still grieving and our relationship was based on bonding through his sorrow."

Watch the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's film, Elvis. Post continues after video. 


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While he was a rock star and a global heartthrob, Priscilla was in high school and required permission from her parents to meet him.

"He was kind. He just didn’t want (fans) to know I was 'the one'," she explained.

Here's everything we know about Elvis and Priscilla's relationship. 

How Elvis met Priscilla.

Elvis was already an international sensation, with hits like 'Heartbreak Hotel' and 'That's All Right' topping the charts, when he enlisted in the US Army in 1958. 

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In August 1958, a few months into his enlistment, his mother passed away from heart failure. She was just 46. 

According to his friend Judy Spreckels, she had never seen anyone sadder than Elvis. 

Priscilla waving away her future husband, Elvis, in 1960. Image: Getty.

"He cried continuously. We were in the front hall at Graceland, and he stood there hugging me for a half-hour," she revealed, per Peter Guralnick’s book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley.

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"He was crying and crying and crying. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen."

The singer rejoined the army and was quickly sent off to Germany with his troop.  

Priscilla's family had moved several times but were settled in West Germany during her teen years, as her stepfather was an Air Force officer. It was there she was approached by a man claiming to be a friend of the rockstar. 

"How would you like to meet Elvis Presley?" he had asked her before she agreed and made plans to meet them at his home. That weekend, her parents drove the 40 minutes to the singer's house. 

Priscilla told PEOPLE in 1985, that she was then introduced to Elvis by another officer, but the 14-year-old was shy about meeting the celebrity. 

"As Currie led me over to him, Elvis stood up and smiled. 'Well,' he said, 'what have we here?'" she recalled.

He went on to ask her, "'What are you, about a junior or senior in high school?'"

"I blushed and said nothing, not willing to reveal that I was only in the ninth grade. ‘Well?’ he persisted.

"'Ninth.' Elvis looked confused. 'Ninth what?' 'Grade,' I whispered.

"'Ninth grade,’ he said and started laughing. 'Why, you’re just a baby.'"

According to reports, he had attempted to impress her by playing his music and a relationship blossomed from there. 

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By 1962, Priscilla was living at Graceland with Elvis and his family, and completing her final semesters of high school in Memphis. 

The proposal and the wedding. 

Their proposal, Priscilla explained, was "very relaxed". 

In 1966, right before Christmas, the star asked on bended knee if "I wanted to marry him," she recalled. 

"'More than ever,' I told him." 

Five short months later, the pair - along with their small wedding party - snuck out the back door of Elvis' Palm Springs home, climbed over the backyard wall and got into a car that headed for the airport. 

"Elvis had been loaned Frank Sinatra’s private jet for the occasion," the star's school friend George Klein wrote in his memoir. 

"[It was] just after midnight on May 1, [1967]."

A second plane chartered the 100 guests. 

The pair tied the knot early the next morning at a candle-filled suite, at the Aladdin, with just 14 people to witness the nuptials. 

Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley on their wedding day in 1967. Image: Getty.

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Elvis and Priscilla later celebrated with the rest of their guests at the reception, and soon after again at another small event with more friends at Graceland.  

"My wedding was very unusual," Priscilla said last year. "It was the people closest to us, and private, and that’s how we wanted it. We didn’t want a fan club. We didn’t want a circus."

"I was very young and very in love, and I wanted to be with him a lot. The times that we were together, I cherish," she added. 

Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley on their wedding day in 1967. Image: Getty.

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What was their relationship like?

The pair welcomed a daughter they named Lisa Marie in 1968. 

Elvis Presley, Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley in 1968. Image: Getty.

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While their relationship was idyllic to begin with, Priscilla referred to herself as her husband's 'living doll' as a result of the way he 'controlled' her look. 

"You need to apply more makeup around your eyes. Make them stand out more," he reportedly told her. "They’re too plain naturally. I like a lot of makeup. It defines your features."

Eventually, Priscilla admitted she had "lost herself" after becoming the global popstar's wife. Reportedly, she was not allowed to have a career either and was required to be a stay at home wife and mother.

"I didn’t have my teenage years as a normal girl, obviously, so I had to adapt," she told Loose Women. "So I just kind of followed what he did. I mean, you lived his life. You saw the movies he wanted to see. You listened to the music he wanted to listen to, and you go to places that he would go."

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She added: "I honestly didn’t have my own life.… So I really kind of lost myself."

Of course, there were affairs too from both Elvis and Priscilla. 

While the pair's relationship didn't seem to show many cracks on the surface, the couple were crumbling behind closed doors. 

According to reports, Elvis tried to leave his wife while she was seven months pregnant with Lisa Marie, and once their daughter was born, he had no desire to be intimate with her. 

"[Elvis] had mentioned to me before we were married that he had never been able to make love to a woman who had a child," wrote Priscilla in her book, Elvis and Me. 

"I [was] beginning to doubt my own sexuality as a woman.... My physical and emotional needs were unfulfilled."

According to Sonny West, a friend of Elvis, monogamy and intimacy with a 'mother' was difficult for the musician.

"It didn’t come easy for Elvis to be a committed husband. Elvis viewed her as a mother first and a wife second, and he had hang-ups about making love with her," he wrote in his book, Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business. 

What made it even trickier was Elvis' close relationship with his mother - which caused him to put mothers in general on a pedestal. 

"The idea of sex with a mother was, to Elvis, out of the question," he wrote.

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Reports claim Elvis had slept with other women since the beginning of their relationship, and had kept having affairs while he was on the road touring. 

Despite Elvis' desire for a 'family life', Priscilla admitted in 2018 she did not believe her ex-husband was ever cut out to be married. 

"He wasn’t faithful. I tried to turn my back to that, but I just didn’t want to share him," she recalled. "As much as he wanted to be married and have a family, I don’t know if he was ever cut to be married. Because I don’t think he could ever be faithful to one woman."

Priscilla had her own affairs - from a dance teacher to her karate instructor, Mike Stone. It would be Mike that forced her to confront her husband.

"I was confronted with the harsh realisation that living the way I had for so long was very unnatural and detrimental to my well-being," Priscilla wrote. "My relationship with Mike had now developed into an affair."

Priscilla Presley and Mike Stone, 1975. Image: Getty.

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Priscilla left Elvis in February 1972, and the pair's divorce was finalised in October 1973. They left the court together, holding hands.

Despite the affairs, the marital control and intimacy problems, the pair remained close friends and deeply in love - with Priscilla admitting she and Elvis cared for one another beyond their divorce. 

"I did not divorce him because I didn’t love him. He was the love of my life, but I had to find out about the world," she wrote. 

Elvis Presley leaving Santa Monica California Superior Court after being granted a divorce from his wife Priscilla. Image: Getty. 

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Almost four years after their divorce, Elvis died. 

Priscilla said she remained close to her ex-husband until his final days. Upon hearing of his death, she admitted she "wanted to die."

"I locked myself in the bedroom and left instructions that I would not speak to anyone, that I wanted to be alone," she wrote in her 1985 memoir. "In fact, I wanted to die. Love is very deceiving. Though we were divorced, Elvis was still an essential part of my life. 

"Over the last years, we’d become good friends, admitting the mistakes we’d made in the past and just beginning to laugh at our shortcomings."

Feature Image: Getty.