Priscilla Presley just came out with a dishy new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis. She writes candidly about the years following Elvis's shocking death in 1977. Although the book describes lots of events in Priscilla's and the Presley family's lives, not everyone agrees with her presentation of the facts. One of those who vehemently does not is Elvis's cousin, Donna Presley. Per Parade, "In a 7-minute YouTube video, Donna picked apart claim after claim, alleging that Priscilla's memoir is an outright attempt at 'removing' his family from the narrative of his life."
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Donna sounds pretty adamant about this. "I will not tolerate her continued erasing of the family, nor her efforts to silence the Presleys. I will rebuke it every time with truth, with evidence, and with the weight of lived experience."
She clearly considers herself a highly knowledgeable insider. Per the outlet, "Donna is the daughter of Nash Presley, the youngest sister of Elvis's father, Vernon." She says she summered at Graceland since childhood and even lived there for a time.
Donna Presley Seems To Have Long-Standing Gripes With Priscilla
Donna said, "I have stayed silent with regard to Priscilla, but there comes a time when a person takes a step too far. I knew her from the very beginning. I was there when she came into Elvis's life after Anita had gone. I saw and heard many things I have chosen not to reveal. I know exactly who she is."
Among the issues Priscilla wrote about in her book that Donna disputes are certain dates, Elvis's alleged drug problem, and Priscilla's views about the alleged abuse that her and Elvis's now-deceased daughter, Lisa Marie, suffered from a former beau.
Donna insists that Elvis did not use drugs unwisely. She also says that Priscilla us responsible for "discrediting" Lisa Marie's claims of abuse from the ex boyfriend.
Her Pointed Comments About Priscilla
According to Donna, "In the years after Elvis died, Priscilla continued with the same tactics in her interviews on television and in print. She would smile, soften her voice, say something pleasant, and then in the same breath deliver something cutting and demeaning about Elvis. It was veiled in charm, wrapped in a performance of sweetness. But what followed desecrated his memory. This became her deliberate pattern of diminishing him. Those attacks scarred our family, and most of my loved ones passed away from this world carrying that pain."
Donna Isn't Quietly Fading Away
Elvis's cousin said, per the outlet, "I had prayed that time would bring wisdom, that age would bring peace. But she [Priscilla] has not stopped. Even now she still claims Elvis was the love of her life. What kind of love humiliates a man in death, undermines his daughter, and wounds his family? Love does not do this. And so I stand, the last of my line, unbowed and fighting for the honor of Elvis, for his daughter, and for my family. The time for silence is over."
