On 8 January 1935 Elvis Aaron Presley was the second of a pair of twins to be born. Sadly, his older brother, delivered 35 minutes earlier, was stillborn. It was something that stayed with the singer all his life, and lead to an incredibly close relationship with his parents, specifically his mother, Gladys.
Fans say he spent his life trying to atone for his sibling’s loss and the pain it brought his mother.
And she always kept her surviving son close. It was a relationship that led to the young Elvis being ridiculed by his extended family, who made fun of the baby talk mother and son indulged in.
Elvis' First Songs Were For His Mom
The first songs he ever recorded were a gift for his mother. When the 18-year-old Elvis Presley walked into the Sun studios in 1954, no one could have predicted the course his life would take. His recordings of My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin earned him a recording contract with Sun Records, which was a springboard to further fame and super stardom.
Although Elvis’s fame brought riches to the struggling family, Gladys battled to adapt to their changing fortunes. At Graceland, the mansion Elvis bought so that she could live in luxury, neighbors mocked her for feeding chickens on the front lawn, and for doing her own laundry.
She told friends that she wished the family was poor again. To cope with an increasingly difficult situation, she started drinking heavily.
In 1958, Elvis was drafted into the army. While he was serving, he received news that his beloved mom had contracted hepatitis, caused by alcohol poisoning. She died two days later at the age of 46.
It was a devastating blow, and Elvis never got over her death. He nearly collapsed at her funeral, and fans have said he changed completely from that moment.
Elvis is on record as saying later: “Oh God, everything I have is gone. I lived my life for you. I loved you so much.”
Even Priscilla, Elvis's wife, claimed Gladys was the love of his life.
Bad Luck Seemed To Follow Elvis
A year after his mother died, Elvis met Priscilla Beaulieu. Fourteen at the time, she reminded the singer of his late mother. The couple married eight years after they first met, but it ultimately wasn’t a happy union. Their daughter, Lisa Marie was born nine months into their marriage, and despite deep issues in the marriage, the pair stuck it out for 18 years.
By 1977, Elvis had descended into an addiction to prescription drugs and bingeing on junk food. Within a few years, the once svelte singer had ballooned to almost 400 pounds.
His shows saw him chatting about karate and telling bad jokes, and the voice that had shot him to stardom was nowhere to be seen.
On 16 August 1977, Elvis died in his bathroom after a heart attack. His condition had been worsened by his drug intake.
Even Elvis’s Funeral Seemed Cursed
The bad luck seemed to continue even at his funeral. After his death, with fans gathered at the gates of Graceland to pay their last respects, a car plowed into a group of mourners, killing two and injuring a third.
Despite Elvis being incredibly well known, it seems the bad luck continued when the stonemasons who prepared his headstone inscribed his second name as Arron, instead of Aaron.
In 1984, the hearse that had taken Elvis on his last ride, was being driven to a South Florida funeral home. En route, the engine suddenly cut out for no reason. When the driver tried to restart the car, flames began to shoot out from under the hood. The driver made it to safety, but the vehicle burned out completely.
Was Elvis’s Only Child Also Cursed?
Just 9 when her famous father died, Lisa Marie’s life has been anything but happy. Married and divorced four times, two of her marriages were to famous stars; Michael Jackson, who died in June 2009 after an overdose from prescription drugs, and Nicolas Cage, a liaison who lasted only 108 days.
Following in her father’s footsteps, Lisa-Marie became addicted to painkillers, adding cocaine to the deadly mix. In 1993 Lisa Marie became the sole heir to her father’s estate, around $100 million. Even Elvis's money wasn't safe; in 2018, Elvis’s daughter claimed she'd been defrauded by her business manager, leaving her with a reduced amount of $14,000.
Elvis’s Grandson Bore A Close Resemblance To The Singer
Fans often remarked on the resemblance between Lisa-Marie’s only son Benjamin. It was a similarity that led to further tragedy.
A photo Priscilla posted of her kids in 2019 went viral after fans saw the similarity between Benjamin and The King. Benjamin didn’t enjoy being in the spotlight, and later told a friend,
“People think is wonderful, but it's also a curse, because you can’t be who you want to be. You can’t be normal because you weren’t born into a normal family.”
Benjamin died by his own hand in July 2020. He was just 27.
Just one more tragic incident in the life of Presley family. And one more reason for fans to believe in the curse of Elvis.
