Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Kevin E G Perry

Lisa Marie Presley memoir claims Michael Jackson was ‘still a virgin’ at 35

Getty Images

Your support helps us to tell the story

Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.

Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.

Louise Thomas

Louise Thomas

Editor

Lisa Marie Presley reveals in her posthumously published memoir that Michael Jackson “told me he was still a virgin” when they dated.

The couple married in May 1994 when Jackson was 35 and Presley was 25.

They were married for over two years before divorcing in August 1996.

Presley’s book, From Here to the Great Unknown, hit shelves earlier today on October 8.

When the pair became romantic, Presley was married to her first husband, musician Danny Keough.

In the new book, Presley recalls Jackson declaring his love for her during a trip to Las Vegas.

Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson in August 1994
Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson in August 1994 (Getty Images)

“Michael said, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m completely in love with you. I want us to get married and for you to have my children,’” Presley writes.

“I didn’t say anything immediately, but then I said, ‘I’m really flattered, I can’t even talk.’ By then, I felt I was in love with him too.”

Presley and Keough soon split amicably, and she started her relationship with Jackson.

“He told me he was still a virgin,” Presley writes in the book. “I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a thing with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been physical apart from a kiss.

“He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once, too, but nothing happened. I was terrified because I didn’t want to make the wrong move.”

The couple never had children together.

Jackson died of cardiac arrest in 2009, at the age of 50. Presley, the only child of rock’n’roll icon Elvis Presley, died of small bowel obstruction caused by complications from bariatric surgery at the age of 54.

Presley’s daughter from her first marriage, Riley Keough, completed her mother’s unfinished memoir by listening to tapes of memories Presley had recorded.

Jackson was repeatedly accused of sexual assault during his life. In 2005 was acquitted at a trial in California on charges of molesting a 13-year-old boy at his ranch.

In 1994, he settled a sexual abuse lawsuit concerning a different 13-year-old boy.

In 2019, Wade Robson and James Safechuck alleged that Jackson sexually abused them as children in the explosive Leaving Neverland documentary. In August last year, a California appeals court revived their lawsuits on the basis that the two Jackson-owned corporations that were named as defendants in the cases had a responsibility to protect them.

From Here to the Great Unknown is out now.

Rape Crisis offers support for those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk.

If you are in the US, you can call Rainn on 800-656-HOPE (4673)

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.