Elvis Presley’s Dark Side Exposed By Former Beauty Queen
on Aug 22, 2016 • Updated Feb 07, 2019
She was just in her early 20s when she had her first run-in with The King, and things only got more intense from there.
Starting out in a simple life just like most of us, the Miss USA contender seemed to find herself in the limelight more and more as the years went on and would go on to date some of the biggest names of the decade.
https://twitter.com/historyinmoment/status/1092447461434687488
At just 22-years-old, the rising starlet found herself next to Elvis Presley at a movie screening in the early ’70s, but never imagined the path ahead.
“I thought maybe I’d get an autograph – I had no idea I’d have 4 ¹/₂ years of loving him,” Linda Thompson reveals in her new book.
Linda Thompson Just Posted a Rare Photo of Elvis Presley on Her Instagram https://t.co/6T9Dg4334N pic.twitter.com/fOWrkYeHBz
— Good Housekeeping (@goodhousemag) October 22, 2018
She goes on to tell the full story of their relationship, explaining the wonders of being close to someone so spectacular and dazzling, but she also reveals the hidden, darker side to the famed performer.
Not accustomed to being whisked away on private jets and waited on hand-and-foot, Thompson details the facets of her newfound love – including staying up all night watching TV because of Presley’s odd schedule.
Elvis Presley & Linda Thompson
(New Haven, CT, July 16, 1975) pic.twitter.com/HJCBKO4Jg9— David Mennessier (@RupertPupkin__) December 29, 2017
But, because of a handful of factors, Presley began to increase his abuse of prescription drugs and repeated infidelity followed.
“After I had the stardust cleared from my eyes, I saw all the problems,” Thompson says, including a “dark side, [a] vicious temper, mood swings.”
The heartbreak of her turbulent relationship with The King only grew larger eight months after she left him – when his beloved daughter, Lisa Marie, called her and broke the news of his death.
Thompson has been very open about her relationship with Presley, and even revealed some of these same details in a 2002 interview with Larry King.
Watch her segment on the show alongside Johnny Cash in the video below.
