Priscilla Presley emotionally reflects on 'connection' she shared with Elvis when she was 14
"I was the person who really sat there to listen and to comfort him."
Priscilla Presley is opening up about the early stages of her relationship with her late husband Elvis Presley.
The "Naked Gun" actress, 78, spoke on the topic during a press conference for Sofia Coppola's new biopic, "Priscilla," at the Venice Film Festival on Monday, despite not being on the panel alongside the film's director and cast.
"It's difficult -- very difficult -- to sit and watch a film about you and about your life and about your love," Presley said from her seat in the audience, becoming emotional. "I think Sofia did an amazing job. She did her homework. We spoke a couple of times, and I really put everything out for her that I could."
Presley met the rock 'n' roll legend in Germany in 1959 when she was 14 and he was 24.
"It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me, and why," Priscilla said, noting that she was a "listener" for him during their relationship.
"Elvis would pour his heart out to me in every way in Germany -- his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother, which he never, ever got over -- and I was the person who really sat there to listen and to comfort him," she recalled. "That was really our connection."
Presley's age at the time she began dating the iconic singer has drawn criticism throughout the years, but she said Elvis "respected" her age and their relationship was more "in mind and thought," not sexual, at the time.
"Even though I was 14, I was actually a little bit older in life -- not in numbers," she said. "That was the attraction. And people think, 'Oh, it was sex, it was this.' Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving. But he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought, and that was our relationship."
After Elvis returned to the United States when his Army service ended, Presley said the two kept in close contact. They would eventually marry years later in 1967.
Over the course of their relationship, the couple would welcome one child -- daughter Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January at 54.
The pair split in 1972 and their divorce was finalized the following year.
"It wasn't because I didn't love him," Presley said of why she left Elvis. "He was the love of my life. It was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me, and I think any woman can relate to that. But it didn't mar our relationship. We still remained very, very close."
"And of course we had our daughter and I made sure that he saw her all the time," she continued, "and it was like we never left each other."
"Priscilla," based on Presley and Sandra Harmon's 1985 book, "Elvis and Me," hits theaters Oct. 27.
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