How Priscilla Presley married Elvis after meeting at 14 as Netflix adds controversial film

The story of how Priscilla Presley met Elvis when she was just 14, before going on to marry him is rapidly becoming a more and more well-known aspect of the world-famous singer's life.

Though for years it was a mostly overlooked part of Elvis’ story, recent films have exposed a new generation to that fact that the pair met when Priscilla was still a child, one of which has been added to Netflix.

Speaking recently, the now 80-year-old actor spoke about the first time she and Elvis had sex, claiming that it took place after they were married.

She was 21 by the time she got married, but the uncomfortable nature of their relationship was the focus of the film Priscilla.

The movie, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi as Priscilla and Elvis, was directed by Sofia Coppola, and caused many to re-examine the pair’s bizarre relationship when it released in 2023.

How did Priscilla Presley meet Elvis when she was just 14

Elvis and Priscilla Presley (Bettmann via Getty Images)

While deployed as a soldier in Germany, Elvis met Priscilla at a party.

At the time he was 24 years old, while Priscilla was in ninth grade.

When he moved back to the United States, to Graceland, she was flown out to visit him chaperoned by her parents, and claims in a new memoir that the relationship only became romantic when she was 17.

They married when she was 21, however, later divorced partially over Elvis repeatedly cheating on her, dating back to before their marriage.

She herself later had an affair with her Karate instructor Mike Stone, with Elvis’ reported consideration of hiring a hitman to kill Stone motivating her decision to divorce him.

The highly controversial biopic on her life Priscilla is added on Netflix

Starring Spaeny and Elordi, the film received a score of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics mostly feeling positively about the movie.

Mark Kermode, reviewing the film, gave it a positive review, saying: “Coppola finds a way of telling that way without being in any way sensationalist, or overtly judgemental but allowing the audience to see... it's like a twisted fairy tale.”

Conversely, the movie was highly criticised by Lisa-Marie Pressley, Priscilla and Elvis’ daughter, who emailed director Sofia Coppola entreating her to change the tone.

She said, in emails obtained by Variety, that the script was ‘shockingly vengeful and contemptuous’ and said that she did not recognise the portrayal of her father in the movie.

The full email said: “My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative.

“As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father.

“I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?”

Her mother was an executive producer on the film and supported of it, and Lisa-Marie died of cardiac arrest just four months later.

Prisicilla is available to stream on Netflix now.