Priscilla Presley is best known for her tumultuous marriage to Elvis Presley. While her relationship with the King of Rock and Roll ended four years before he passed away, she remained present throughout his life as they shared their daughter Lisa Marie.
© Gary GershoffBut while Priscilla remains an iconic part of her ex-husband's image, and a staunch defender of Graceland's legacy, there's one fact about her relationship that may surprise fans: she didn't see Elvis perform live until she had been with him for nine years.
© GettyThe 79-year-old saw him perform live for the first time during the taping of his iconic '68 Comeback Special, which aired on NBC on December 3, 1968.
© GettyShe was certainly taken aback by the show, which she described as "a great trip."
"You see all the girls lined up, all the fans going nuts, and I'm looking at this going, 'Wow,'" Priscilla told People. "And he'd take his scarf off his neck and he'd give it to someone right there by the stage, and they would go crazy. It was really a treat. It was a trip, a great trip.”
© GettyShe revealed that Elvis was "nervous because he hadn't appeared [on stage] in so long."
© Getty"People would think, ‘How could he be nervous? He’s Elvis Presley.' He was very nervous, but he did his homework. He would go and rehearse and rehearse and rehearse."
The taping was a success, with 42 percent of the total television audience of the time viewing it, making it the most-watched show of the season according to Rolling Stone.
© NBCIt was the first time Elvis had performed in front of a live audience in seven years, after he skyrocketed to fame in the 1950s. The singer was drafted into the Army in 1957 where he served in Germany and would first meet Priscilla, then 14 years old, in 1959.
Priscilla would move in with Elvis for good in 1963, two months before her 18th birthday, on the agreement that they would eventually marry, which they did in 1967.
When he returned from the Army in 1960, Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had locked him into a multi-year movie studio contract, where he was often unhappy with the scripts he was offered.
Priscilla revealed that her ex-husband "wanted to be in great movies, not the stupid movies that he did like Girls! Girls! Girls! That wasn't Elvis."
"Colonel did not get him really at all," she added. "That was hard for both Jerry and I," she said in reference to Elvis' close friend Jerry Schilling. "But you couldn't say anything to Colonel. You just had to keep quiet."
