Nineteen women who dated Elvis Presley have revealed all in a new documentary that asks some disturbing questions about the King of Rock’n’Roll.
Many former loves of the late singer remain besotted with him, but some were only teenagers at the time.
Alanna Nash, who has written books about the star, says: “We love Elvis Presley so much that we don’t want to see his fatal flaws.”
The US author compares him to R Kelly, the American singer serving time for child sex abuse. Alanna tells the documentary: “In this day and age he’d be sharing a cell with R Kelly.”
Elvis was 24 and an enlisted US soldier when he met his future wife Priscilla Presley in Germany in 1959 when she was 14. They got married in 1967.
His military pal Currie Grant, who ran the entertainment at a club for service families, said: “Priscilla came into the club and she found out I knew Elvis.
“Who knew she was 14? And nobody cared because she was that beautiful.
“Her parents were so sold on Elvis they didn’t give a damn. If I’d have been the parents I’d have been raising hell. He liked young girls because he can control them.”
Those close to Elvis knew of the dangers of bad press. In 1957, 22-year-old singer Jerry Lee Lewis wed his 13-year-old cousin. The public backlash made his career nosedive.
Elvis’ stepbrother David Stanley said of the relationship with Priscilla: “[Elvis’ dad] and the guys were really concerned they had a Jerry Lee Lewis situation going on...
“There’s a lot of things I love about Elvis but there’s things I wish I’d never seen.
“One was his taste for young girls. It’s a miracle he didn’t get busted.”
Frances Forbes was a 14-year-old fan at the gates of Elvis’ home – Graceland in Memphis – in 1957 when he invited her in.
She tells the Amazon Prime documentary, called Elvis’ Women: “We just had fun. He called me Little Frances. I spent most of my time in Graceland [and I] skipped school.
“I was 14 when I met him, Elvis was 22. He was attracted to younger girls.
“E always said ‘14 will get you 20’. If we were talking about us travelling with him or having sex, 14 years old would get you 20 years in prison. If you were 13 you were way too young – 14 was the magic age.”
Kay Wheeler, who founded the Elvis Presley fan club aged 16, said of an encounter with the star who wanted her to wait in his hotel room: “He came on like Godzilla.
“I walked in, he was looking in a mirror. He started being kissy and holdy. Every minute you want to be with Elvis and then you get right in front of him and there’s only one thing you want to do and that’s run for your life because you know you’re in danger.”
After Priscilla and Elvis divorced in 1973, he dated Linda Thompson. Reeca Smith, a friend of Elvis’ stepbrother David, was 14 when she met the singer, then aged 39, in 1974 while he was with Linda.
Elvis bought Reeca £2,000 worth of clothes, and two weeks later, one of his bodyguards called her.
Reeca says: “He said Elvis wanted to see me. My dad drove me to Graceland and dropped me off. I had said ‘Elvis, why do you want to be around me?’.
“He said ‘What I like about you is it kinda takes me back to my childhood where I can be innocent and feel young again, and you’re not putting me up to be this superstar’. He would start making out but then he would stop. Now when I look back at that I think ‘Wow, that’s a gentleman’.”
Linda defends the star, saying: “I never heard of Elvis abusing women or being inappropriate or a paedophile. That’s not to say he didn’t have dalliances but he was not an idiot and he knew about statutory laws.”
Priscilla recently said: “[When we met] I was 14, he was 24 and he was always a gentleman with me.
“My relationship with Elvis was not sexual. He poured his heart out on the loss of his mother.”
The documentary looks at Elvis’ close relationship with mum Gladys who died in 1958 aged 46.
Jackie Rowland’s mum agreed to take her to meet Elvis at his parents’ home if she lost weight.
The 14-year-old shed 5st and Elvis’ parents welcomed her in on a day the star was out of town. Gladys asked her about her school grades and if she went to church. Jackie says: “She was auditioning me for Elvis. She said ‘Elvis has never had a chance to sow his wild oats, while he does that you’ll have time to grow up’.
“The next day Elvis had come back and we went in the house. Elvis immediately put his arm around me and started nibbling on my earrings. Then he stuck his tongue in my ear.
“I was 14 and I had never dated a boy and I told him to stop and I pushed him away. He said, ‘Oh, Miss Rowland, what is wrong with your daughter?’.” But it did not end there, says Jackie.
“I was a secret and nobody was supposed to take photographs of me,” she adds, of dating the star.
“My grandfather had already told us that if Elvis was caught with me he would be thrown in jail.
“The ending to our relationship occurred when Gladys was asking my mother to let me move in with them.
“Gladys wanted to raise me to find out if for sure I was the girl she wanted for him. My mother said ‘no way’.”
Elvis, whose first song was released in 1954, died in 1977 aged 42.
