Elvis Presley dated Linda for four and a half years. It was the longest, most significant relationship of his life apart from Priscilla. They split up less than year before his death but Linda was invited by the family to his funeral and has guarded and honoured his memory and legacy ever since. She also married Jenner and had two sons, Brody and Brandon Jenner, as well as forging a successful career as a songwriter and marrying second husband, legendary record producer David Foster.
While those closest to Elvis started to release revelatory tell-all books in the final year of his life and then endlessly ever since, Linda remained notably silent for forty years.
In 2016 she released her only book on the subject, A Little Thing Called Life: On Loving Elvis Presley, Bruce Jenner, and Songs in Between.
She said: “Everything that could have possibly been written about Elvis had been written and then some, or made-up stories. So I really thought this was a huge responsibility, to this day. I’ve always attempted to represent him in the light which he deserves.”
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Linda said of Elvis: “He was such a remarkable human being and I tried to write the book with kindness and tolerance and understanding.
“And also just a bit of knowledge that you can only garner through life experience. I had to live my life and carve out my own career. I didn’t want to be one of those people that just jumped on the bandwagon and wrote a book and made a profit at his expense and to capitalise on that relationship. I was very guarded about that.
“I wanted to carve out my own position in life, write my own songs, carve out my own career, have my kids and my family and then write about my life and where he fit into it, which is, of course, the greatest love imaginable.”
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Linda dated Elvis from July 1972 to December 1976. As well as being his companion and sometimes nursemaid, Linda also became close to The King’s young daughter, who was only four when they started dating.
On the devastating night when Elvis died, nine-year-old Lisa Marie called Linda.
Last month, Linda described that terrible call: “She (Lisa Marie) said, ‘My daddy’s dead, my daddy’s dead.’ I can’t even tell you what I felt. I was stunned and paralysed. I said, ‘What? No, he’s not.’
She said, ‘Yes he is, yes he is. He’s dead.’ The only thing that brought it to reality was when she said, ‘He’ smothered in the carpet.’ And when she said that, I just threw the phone because I thought, ‘Ok, he’s gone. That’s it.’”
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This post originally posted here Daily Express
