Michael Jackson: Lisa Marie Presley kept marriage secret from mother Priscilla Presley

Shortly after Lisa Marie’s divorce from her first husband Danny Keough in 1994, she started a relationship with King of Pop Michael Jackson. The 27-year-old had met him just a few years prior and the loved-up couple decided to get married sooner rather than later. While the world looked on in shock at the time, Priscilla told talk show host Oprah Winfrey how she didn’t know anything about it.

Speaking in 2005 on Oprah, Priscilla revealed 37-year-old Michael had tried to connect with Lisa Marie years earlier.

Elvis Presley’s ex-wife said she was “concerned and suspicious” about Michael when he called and asked her to have dinner with him and to bring Lisa Marie along.

She explained: “I said: ‘She’s only 16, she’s kind of young.’ And he was saying: ‘No I want to meet her!’ So I said, you know, she’s in school right now.”

Despite Priscilla stopping their contact, Michael later reached out to Lisa Marie himself, starting their relationship.

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Priscilla continued: “I couldn’t help think there’s Graceland, there’s Neverland, there’s a whole thread which goes into what he does and even in his business.

“I do think there was some of that – not that he didn’t care, but I think there’s a whole other agenda going on.”

When pressed about her feelings towards Michael, she continued: “I would hate to believe it was for one thing. I really don’t want to go there with that, it’s just hard for me to believe that people do that.”

Lisa Marie was later quizzed about whether she consummated her marriage with Michael. She admitted she had.

Priscilla butted in: “I do think there was an agenda there too, though. Because he wanted children.”

Years later it was revealed Michael split up with Lisa Marie because she wouldn’t give him children when he wanted them. He also threatened to have children with Debbie Rowe instead.

Lisa Marie told Oprah in a subsequent interview: “I know she [Rowe] was there the whole time telling him she would do it. He would tell me: ‘If you’re not gonna do it, Debbie said she’ll do it.’

“And we would get into arguments because that wasn’t how to handle it. But that’s how he knew how to handle it: ‘If you’re not going to do it, this person will. Are you going to do it or not?'”

Michael and Lisa Marie divorced in 1996. Later that same year he married Rowe, who later gave birth to his first two children, Prince Jackson and Paris Jackson in 1997 and 1998 respectively.