Priscilla Presley Considered Marrying Robert Kardashian, But ‘Didn’t Want to Lose’ Presley Name

Priscilla Presley kept estranged husband Elvis in the dark about her romance with up-and-coming lawyer Robert Kardashian because insiders say she feared losing her famous last name and self-proclaimed title of “Queen of Graceland.”

The King’s ex-wife lays bare the affair in her new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, bragging about getting a secret 2 a.m. phone call from her “Love Me Tender” ex while Robert slept next to her in her bed.

“Fortunately, he was a sound sleeper, so I leaped out of bed and grabbed the phone before it woke him,” she writes. “He never knew Elvis had called. And Elvis never knew about Robert.”

But an insider tells Globe the now 80-year-old Priscilla had several encounters with Elvis, who died at 42 in 1977, while she was dating the future dad of the Kardashian clan sisters.

“When Elvis would come by unannounced in the middle of the night to see his daughter, Kardashian would be there asleep and she’d hide him,” says the insider, who accuses Priscilla of telling only part of the story in the book.

“She didn’t want to get Elvis angry because he would still buy her anything she wanted even after the divorce. She kept a lot of secrets from Elvis, and he didn’t live much longer after she began seeing Robert.”

The insider claims Priscilla considered “marrying Robert, but she didn’t want to lose the Presley name and Graceland,” the singer’s legendary Nashville mansion.

In the book, Priscilla admits liking Robert — who died in 2003 at 59 after becoming famous for helping O.J. Simpson dodge double murder charges — but felt the romance “wasn’t going to work out” because he liked to stay home and rest on weekends after a grueling work week while she preferred “to be out and about doing something.”

As Globe has reported, Priscilla is now fighting a $50 million breach of contract lawsuit filed by two former business associates who accuse her of quickly taking daughter Lisa Marie, 54, off life support in 2023 in an attempt to cash in on the estate of Elvis’ only heir.

In response, Priscilla filed an elder abuse claim against the former business partners, Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko, accusing them of tricking her into signing over as much as 80 percent of her earnings.

Priscilla’s lawyer vehemently denied the charges made against her. But the lawsuit alleges that just before Lisa Marie’s funeral, the mom exclaimed, “I’m the queen. I’m in charge of Graceland.”