Priscilla Presley Reveals Why She Left Elvis

Priscilla Presley's marriage to Elvis made her the envy of many, but it wasn't all glitz and glamour behind closed doors. The pair "didn't go out" and "truly lived in a bubble," Presley told ITV talk show Loose Women on Wednesday, per the Huffington Post. "I just kind of followed what he did. You lived his life," continued Presley, who started dating Elvis at age 14 and married him at 21, though he was 10 years her senior. "You really kind of lost yourself." Not even alone with Elvis could she be entirely herself. "He taught me, even in having a relationship, about always having a mystique—never revealing everything," she said, per Yahoo.

For example, not once during six years of marriage did Elvis see his wife without makeup on, says Presley, 71. "He never wanted to see me getting dressed. He wanted to see the result of getting dressed," she said, as quoted by Country Living. While her teenage years were "fun," she didn't experience them "as a normal girl." Only when she began attending a dance class did she realize how unusual their relationship was, said Presley, who divorced Elvis in 1973. "I left because … I needed to find out what the world was like," she said. "I didn't really know who I was." Even then, they still loved each other, she said, and left the courthouse holding hands. (HBO is putting the finishing touches on a new Elvis Presley film.)