Elvis' Vegas comeback gigs tore us apart

Priscilla Presley discovered her husband's infidelities while opening sackfuls of fan mail at their Graceland home.

- JAMES DESBOROUGH

The besotted girls writing to Elvis made it perfectly clear, in stark, stabbing, black and white.

From 1969, the king had been playing his comeback residency in Las Vegas and with gigs in Sin City came renewed adoration and plenty of parties.

It was the latter he began prioritising over Priscilla and their baby daughter, Lisa Marie, born the previous year, alongside his entourage known as the Memphis Mafia, run by pal and road manager Joe Esposito.

Priscilla was opening the mail with Joe's wife, Joan when she realised. what was going on. Sign-offs like "Babyface" told her all she needed.

"There was a lot that I really shouldn't have been seeing because it was hurtful," she admits. "Vegas for us, as women who had children, just wasn't a place to bring the kids.

"So we would stay home and wait for them to come back after the weekend. We were trying to keep a family together.

"The times in Vegas were the most difficult times. It was playtime for the guys. And I tried my best.

She explains: "I was trying to tend to two masters - my daughter and my husband. So I think those were the difficult times because that's when really everything started with us as a family breaking up. Vegas ruined the marriages.

Priscilla, now 78, adds: "I had to be with my child and I didn't want to be separated from Elvis either.

"So I had a nanny and I would bring her to Vegas when he was performing there, but it was really difficult because Lisa being so young, I had to get up early, she would cry and he had to sleep because he was performing. It made it difficult to have a family.

"So it was times that he came home that were really the best times."