Elvis Presley had a “no wives” rule while he was touring. Priscilla Presley shared the way that this began to impact their marriage.
Priscilla Presley didn’t particularly like touring with Elvis Presley, but she liked having distance between them even less. His long stretches away from home put strain on their relationship and left Priscilla concerned about his behavior. It didn’t help that Elvis didn’t let her travel with him even if she wanted to. He banned wives from touring with him.
Elvis told Priscilla Presley she couldn’t travel with him for concerts
After a series of career disappointments, Elvis finally found success in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He had gone years without performing live, and suddenly, he began touring constantly.
“From 1971 on, he toured more than any other artist — three weeks at a time with no days off and two shows on Saturdays and Sundays,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me.
She struggled with the distance between them but didn’t know what to do about it. While Elvis said he’d be happy to have Priscilla join him on the road, he didn’t want the wives of his entourage to come, too. He wanted to maintain the bachelor lifestyle he’d established with his entourage rather than help his marriage.
“We talked constantly of being together more, but he knew that if he let me join him, he couldn’t refuse the requests from regulars whose marriages had been feeling the strain of long separations,” Priscilla wrote. “For a while a group of us would fly in from time to time, but this didn’t last long. Elvis noticed that his employees were lax in discharging their duties to him when spouses were present, and he established a new policy: no wives on the road.”
Elvis eventually told Priscilla Presley to spend less time with him in Las Vegas
Though Priscilla missed Elvis, she found time on the road tediously repetitive. She found it concerning when Elvis told her he didn’t want wives going to his Las Vegas residencies, though.
“It was the day that Elvis suggested I come to Vegas less often that I became really upset and suspicious,” Priscilla wrote. “He’d decided that we wives would attend opening and closing nights only.”
She felt that their visions for their future were not aligned.
“I knew then I’d have to fight for our relationship or accept the fact that we were now gradually going to grow apart as so many couples in show business do,” she wrote. “As a couple, we’d never sat down to plan out a future. Elvis, individually, was stretching as an artist, but as man and wife we needed a common reality.”
She constantly worried about her husband’s behavior
Priscilla continued to visit Elvis on his opening and closing nights in Las Vegas. She found the opening nights exciting, but dreaded the closing nights. She worried that Elvis was having affairs while away from her.
“On closing nights I always felt uneasy,” she wrote. “Too many days had gone by, enough time for suspicions to poison my thoughts. The Vegas maître d’s invariably planted a bevy of beauties in the front row for the entertainer to play to.”
Priscilla agonized over this, but she didn’t think it was anything she could discuss with Elvis.
“Curious, I would scan their faces while watching Elvis closely to see if he seemed to direct his songs to any girl in particular. Suspicious of everyone, my heart ached — but we were never able to talk about it. It was to be accepted as part of the job.”
