Elvis and Me - A Different View in Suzanne Finstad's Book

A Different View in Suzanne Finstad's Book

In Suzanne Finstad's book, Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (1997), a completely different account of Priscilla Presley's life, painted her in a rather negative light and described her as a "wild child" and "sexpot". The sources of this book are several people who knew Elvis and Priscilla well, among them: many friends from Priscilla's childhood and adolescence, Elvis' stepbrother Rick Stanley, Mike Edwards, Elvis' ex-girlfriends and the wives of the Memphis Mafia men. The author writes that Priscilla promised sexual favors in exchange for meeting Elvis with Currie Grant, a married, 27-year-old former Army buddy of the singer, and that she was not a virgin on her wedding night, as she and Elvis had slept together on their second date. The book also says that Priscilla did not want to come to live with Elvis, but that her marriage was part of a mastermind for fame hatched by Priscilla and her mother, and that she never loved Elvis. Finstad takes many quotes that Priscilla has made and calls them a web of lies.

Priscilla denied Currie's allegations and successfully sued him for defamation. She won more than £46,000 in the lawsuit. She had wanted £6m from Grant. Finstad, "too, had been threatened with suits from Priscilla Presley and her church (of Scientology)." Notwithstanding, neither Finstad nor her publisher was a party to the lawsuit.