Did you catch Lisa Marie Presley on Oprah on Thursday? If not, I have part of the extremely moving interview below, thanks to AOL and Popeater.com.
Presley decided to do an interview and once and for all answer any questions the world may have about her relationship with her ex-husband, Michael Jackson. And she choose Oprah Winfrey as the lucky interviewer.
Presley started by saying: “Every time I’ve ever had an interview in the past, I tend to get very defensive because I was usually promoting something and it would always cross into my personal life. I wanted to sit and really have a conversation about things that are more on a personal level, before I do have an album coming out next year,” she said.
Presley said she was in England when she found out through a text from John Travolta that Jackson had died. She said she was “crying all day” before she had heard any news and could not understand why she was crying. Her reaction when she finally heard the news? “Real honest to goodness shock, not even tears. I was floored, honestly floored,” she said.
Presley said she didn’t know until right before the divorce that Jackson may have had a drug problem. “I didn’t really suspect and catch on until just before I filed for divorce. There was just an occasion, an incident where he had collapsed and he was in the hospital,” she described a1995 event when Jackson collapsed while rehearsing for an HBO concert and doctors blamed it on a viral infection.
“It was very confusing what was wrong. Every day there was a different report. And I couldn’t tell what was happening. I couldn’t really get a straight answer about what was happening with him and I think we were all a little bit in the dark. At that point, I think I got from various indications that that was going on then.”
Presley wanted to make sure the world knew hers and Jackson’s love, marriage and romance was for real. “I honestly can tell you, it was every sense a normal marriage. One of the very highest points of my life was when things were going really well and he and I were united together and he and I had an understanding about some of the people and things that could go on around him and he was with me on those things and we were a unit and I could take care of him. For some reason, I don’t know what happens when someone passes away and this is what’s come of it. But I’ve come to have all this love again and understanding for him. I don’t know why it had to take all that to have this happen. That upsets me a bit,” Presley said.
As to why the marriage ended, Presley said: “There was a very profound point in the marriage when he had to make a decision; was it the drugs and the sort of vampires or me? And he pushed me away.”
Watch a part of the interview below: