43 Years Following Elvis' Death His Ex Linda Thompson Speaks Of His Tragic Confession To Her

Dec 08, 2020

Even after they broke up, Elvis Presley and his former girlfriend Linda Thompson remained close friends, with the late singer confiding in her some of his darkest thoughts, right up until his untimely death in 1977. In the years after Presley passed away, Thompson admitted that while their relationship was full of love, the singer's downward spiral towards the end had become "exhausting" for her. In a tell-all interview last year with Dean Z, the former beauty Queen got candid about her relationship with Presley, revealing a devastating confession he once made to her. 

Linda Thompson and Elvis Presley's relationship started shortly after the singer separated from his first wife, Priscilla Presley. The pair had met at a private film screening and instantly hit it off. She was just 22 years old at the time; he was 37. Their relationship would last four years before Thomspon would eventually leave Presley, as she struggled to put up with his downward spiral and yearned to live a "normal life." 

 "The year we shared sort of equates to 10 or 12 years in a normal life," Thompson told Dean Z, as quoted by Express. 

"In a normal relationship, you go to work, you come back, you meet for a few hours, you have dinner, you go to sleep. The next day you're both off doing your thing," she elaborated. "With Elvis it was so intense. It was so 24/7."

Thomspon, a former beauty pageant winner, actress, and songwriter, shared a heartbreaking confession Presley made to her during their relationship. 

"I asked him one time, when we were sitting and having philosophical talk, 'What do you think is your worst flaw?'" Thomspon recalled.

"And he thought for a minute and he said, 'Well, I'm probably only gonna say this once, but I think I'm a little bit self-destructive.'"

Thompson explained that what made that revelation so heartbreaking was that by Presley admitting that to her, it meant he knew he was already on a downward spiral. "I don't think he could stop it," she said. 

The retired actress revealed she had witnessed the late singer first start abusing substances. "Once I realized that Elvis took sleeping medication and sometimes some other things that maybe interacted with that," Thompson said. She recalled that the stress of feeling responsible for somebody so fragile started to take a toll on her as well. 

"It was like having a newborn baby. I wouldn't sleep. I wanted to know he was okay," she admitted.

"I would sit and watch him until he fell asleep and then I would get up all through the night," she added.

According to Thompson, she would regularly check up on Presley during the night to make sure he was breathing and okay, "because sometimes he wasn't."

She admitted that she began to become exhausted, both physically — because of the lack of sleep — and emotionally. 

"I was a young girl but it was still exhausting when you're not sleeping," Thompson shared. "And also just emotionally exhausting because this is a person that I loved more than my own life and watching him slowly self-destruct and not being able to do anything about it…"

As Presley continued to deteriorate, Thomspon said she was unsure how she could help him, except be there for him and "keep him healthy." She recalled one particular morning, when the late singer was struggling to breathe and prompted her to call an ambulance. "There were several times like that where it was really frightening," she admitted. 

His self-destructive behavior led to the relationship's eventual demise, as Thompson eventually realized she "wanted more" out of her life and yearned to be a mother. Roughly one year following their split, Elvis Presley died of a heart attack aged 42. His only child, Lisa Marie Presley, was just nine years old at the time. 

According to Express, Thompson wrote extensively in her memoir, A Little Thing Called Life, about her relationship with Presley and their eventual breakup, admitting that she would love him "till the day [she] die[s]." Following his death, Presley's daughter called Thompson to break the news to her, as well as to seek comfort. 

Now more than four decades after he passed away, Thompson says that she looks back with love and fondness despite all the hurt during their relationship. "There's always a place in my heart for him," she said. 

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