Jackson-Presley

“Just think, nobody thought this would last.” Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley Timeline (1974 - ∞)

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November 1996: Lisa Marie Presley suffers a mental breakdown

“After the divorce from Michael, my mom started having panic attacks. This is why she took us out of L.A. and to Florida to begin with. They were so severe that she was in and out of the hospital. Even in Florida she had to put aluminum foil over the windows so the paparazzi couldn't take photos of her. She had her gallbladder removed and the mercury taken out of her teeth. But nothing helped because it wasn't just physical. She was having a sort of mental breakdown.”

— Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, from “From Here to the Great Unknown” (2024)

“In the period following her split from Jackson, her health collapsed: "My body started to deteriorate. I started to have panic attacks. I went through two years of baffling every doctor from East to West Coast. […] I had everything happening; my body completely fell apart. And nobody knew what the hell was wrong with me." She was allergic to everything. "I had to eat chicken and broccoli for a year," she remembers. "I was absolutely falling apart, physically and emotionally, for a two-year period." At times, she thought of death.”

— Lisa Marie Presley: Rolling Stone Interview - April 20, 2003 (via rollingstone)

“It hasn't happened very often that l've actually given my heart. Sometimes I can be completely smitten, but l'll still keep it back at arm's length. Because if I do give it to someone and I get hurt, it's tragic. It incapacitates me. I have to be really careful of that.”

— Lisa Marie Presley: Jane Magazine Interview - September, 2003 (via mjfa.forum)

You said it wasn't sharp but I cut my finger / You said it just wouldn't burn and I scarred my face / You know I bite my nails, my skin and my fingers / And I've heard that's my liver, my nerves and my brain / […] You said it just wasn't there when it fell down on me / […] You said I'm something I'm not and I fell on my face / You said I wouldn't rot but worms are crawling on me / Yeah, I'm just a son of a bitch no matter what you say

— Lisa Marie Presley; “S.O.B.” from “To Whom It May Concern” (2003)

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November 15, 1996: Michael Jackson and 6-months pregnant Debbie Rowe are wed in a private suite of Sheraton on the Park Hotel in Sydney, Australia

“If anyone has problems, she handles them”, says [Mary] Colandro. "She's a great rescuer." […] Jackson is, in other words, a man who could use a “great rescuer” like [Debbie] Rowe - and his friends know it. “She's a really gentle person, very loving,” says Stephen Millard, marketing director at Epic International Artists, Jackson's label in Australia. Adds another associate: “Lisa Marie [Presley] had a mind of her own. Debbie is not involved in the limelight. She is very easygoing.”

— “Baby on Board!: The Story Behind Michael Jackson’s surprise wedding to pregnant pal Debbie Rowe”; People Magazine (December 2, 1996) (via mjfa.forum)

And I'm the target for the daggers / That the truth's thrown your way, today / And the next one / Maybe she'll be easier / She'll make it go away, hey

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Indifferent” from “To Whom It May Concern” (2003)

I've seen the way you and she / You put on a play / And how she plays the / Part much better than I played / Can it be you're over me? / She took my place, she saved the day / Hard to see you're over me / When she took my place she / Saved the day / I've seen that she / She likes to eat whatever you make / And how well she can / Bake that cake I wouldn't bake / What a breath of fresh air she is in my wake

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Over Me” from “Storm & Grace” (2012)

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November 3, 1996: Debbie Rowe pregnancy is officially announced

“The woman who is carrying Michael Jackson's baby has told friends that the King of Pop's marriage to Lisa Marie Presley broke up because she wouldn't have his child. […] “It was not an accident," says Kevin Forrest, a neighbor of Rowe's. "Michael wanted to have a child. And when Lisa Marie wouldn't... well, it was not an accident. Debbie wanted to do this for Michael.”

— Debbie Rowe neighbors Kevin Forrest and Mary Colandro are interviewed by San Jose Mercury News, People and Entertainment Wire (November 8-9, 1996) (via mjfa.forum)

And how easy it will be replacing me / And what's that I hear now, Daddy? / You're blaming it all on me / Another she did you wrong / And of course you had to leave / And the yes men will agree / That you gave it everything

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Gone” from “To Whom It May Concern” (2003)

D: Did [Michael Jackson] fight you getting a divorce?

LMP: No, he ... I think he got on to, you know, getting somebody else pregnant, right? Or having a baby. That's what he wanted. He seemed to get on that pretty quick. You know, I don't know...

DS: Did it shake your confidence?

LMP: Yeah, I was pretty much needed to be mopped up off the floor after that one.

— Lisa Marie Presley PRIMETIME Interview with Diane Sawyer (2003)

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October 24, 1996: Lisa Marie Presley clarifies she has no intention of remarrying Danny Keough as the media is reporting

“Lisa Marie tells me she watched in dismay as Entertainment Tonight and much of the rest of the media seized on a made-up story out of London that says she's planning to remarry her first husband Danny Keough.

She said:"This kind of thing gets so irritating seeing it reported everywhere as truth. It's completely false! We made a statement when we divorced that we would remain friends for our children's sake. And that's how it stands. We are friends. That's our relationship."

I asked Lisa Marie how she was otherwise. "Otherwise, I'm alive. I’m concentrating on my children. I did an ad for Versace recently that is being seen internationally. But I have no comments to make, nor do I want to talk about Michael Jackson. I do wish him the best in life. And I am sure he wants the best for me.”

— Liz Smith reports Lisa Marie Presley Denies Intention To Remarry Daniel Keough (October 24, 1996) (via mjfa.forum)

Photos: Lisa Marie Presley for Versace photographed by Mario Testino; Vogue Italia, September 1996

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March 26, 1996: Lisa Marie Presley at Versace Jeans Couture / Vogue Party, during New York Fashion Week, at Bryant Park. Her first public appearance after her divorce from Michael Jackson

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February 6, 1996: Tabloid media (+ J. Randy Taraborrelli) spread lies about Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s intimate relationship

“Lisa also found it amusing that Michael was, as she put it to one intimate, 'an absolute cosmetics freak'. He would spend hours in the bathroom, she said, putting on and taking off different kinds of makeups. In fact, she never saw him without his makeup. If they slept together, in the morning Michael would be gone before she awakened - in the bathroom, applying his morning makeup. She'd look at his pillow and find it smeared with makeup. […] "No, Lisa," he would shriek, "don't look. Please, don't look!" Then, he would jump out of bed and scamper into the bathroom. Lisa would crack up.”

— J. Randy Taraborrelli, from “Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, 1958–2009” (2009)

H: At any point did you see [Michael Jackson] without the make-up?

L: Um… what make-up? I mean, powder? I don’t know-

H: You know what I mean, the tape over the nose, and the-

L: Yes, I saw him.

H: And was it freaking you out?

L: I didn’t look at him like that, I was kind of beyond that. I know that sounds whatever but I just… you know.

— Lisa Marie Presley on Howard Stern (April 8, 2003)

“[Michael] stands in front of us, head bowed, as if he feels shame. It is the first time I have seen the true extent of his skin condition, and it shocks me. His self-consciousness is such that he has kept his body hidden from even his family until now. His torso is light brown, splashed with vast areas and blotches of white, spreading across his upper chest; one patch of white covers his ribs and stomach, another runs down his side, and blotches cover one shoulder and upper arm. There is more white than brown, his natural skin color: he looks like a white man splashed with coffee. This is the skin condition—the vitiligo—that a cynical world says he doesn't have, preferring to believe that he bleaches his skin.”

— Jermaine Jackson describes seeing the extend on Michael’s skin condition for the first time in 2005, from “You Are Not Alone - ​​Michael: Through a Brother's Eye” (2011)

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January 26, 1996: Michael Jackson post-divorce revenge; going out to dinner at Motown Cafe with “mysterious blonde” (his make-up artist, Karen Faye)

“Well, Lisa Marie Presley was calling Michael the day before this was shot and saying -- begging him not to divorce her. They weren't getting along. And so she called repetitively and begged him, “don't file for divorce. I really want to try to work this out.” And Michael kept saying, “no. I don't think it's really going to work out.” So she begged and begged, “please don't file, yet. Please don't file, yet.” So, he promised her he wouldn't file for divorce. But the next morning, it was all over the press she had gone ahead and filed divorce before him. So he was devastated by that, because he really decided to try again. She was, like, convincing him to try, and she turned around -- and I guess she just wanted to beat him to the punch in the press. So he said, “Come on. Let's give the press something to talk about” in relationship to this announcement. So we went out, and I was the mysterious blonde, and we went to the Motown cafe.”

— Karen Faye Testimony on Jackson vs. AEG trial (May 9, 2013) (via DailyMichael)

Michael holding “The Temptations” menu right for the camera (one of the concerts he and Lisa Marie Presley went together in Las Vegas, in February 1994, and her then husband Danny Keough went looking for her at the hotel they were staying).

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January, 1996: Diana Ross reaction to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley divorce

“I don’t know anything about what’s going on.” Diana hasn’t seen Michael since he was hospitalized in New York last month. But she hopes his split with his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, is not permanent. “I’d like to see them make it together. I’d like to see them both happy.”

— Diana Ross interview while rehearsal for Super Bowl XXX Halftime show (January 28, 1996)

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January 1996: Elvis clan reaction to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley divorce

“[Michael] didn't want to be with her; he wanted to be with Elvis Presley's daughter. If he'd wanted to be with her, he wouldn't have been gone for most of their marriage. […] I could practically hear Elvis sigh with relief.”

— Priscila Beaulieu Presley; from “Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis” (2025)

“Lisa's ill-founded marriage to Michael came tumbling down within six months of the Diane Sawyer interview, when Lisa filed for divorce in January 1996. […] Lisa, [Myrna Smith] revealed, was devastated by the experience.”

— Suzanne Finstad, from “Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley” (1997)

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January 1996: The Cascios reaction to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley divorce

“[…] they were better off without each other. […] From my perspective, Lisa Marie disappeared as abruptly as she had arrived. Apparently, she and Michael stayed close, but I rarely saw her anymore. Though I was never jealous of Lisa, when Michael told me they were parting ways, I have to admit to feeling a little relieved. I mean, I was a teenager and he was my friend. In most ways, it was as if we were high school peers, playing together, having fun, talking about girls.

When you're high school buddies and one of the guys gets a girl, things inevitably change. I knew that his having a wife meant that I would see less of Michael, but I accepted Lisa and loved her. That's what buddies do. After all, I hoped to have a girl of my own one day, and when that day came, I would want Michael to do the same for me as I had done for him. When he and Lisa broke up, all it meant to me was that I had my friend back.”

— Frank Cascio; “My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship with an Extraordinary Man” (2011)

Michael never told Frank Cascio he was “parting ways” with Lisa Marie Presley because he was blindsided by the divorce.

Also, he’s trying to imply Lisa was lying about “staying close” to Michael when there’s plenty of evidence, especially photos.

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January, 1996: Reactions to Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley’s divorce are immediate

“Michael is a workaholic and Lisa Marie has no idea what that is all about," said one fan. "She hasn't worked a day in her life. We thought it was pretty tacky for her to separate from him while he was sick." A Presley source asserted that even if Jackson friends found the timing tacky, the Jackson family genuinely liked Presley. Some wondered if Jackson's refusal to join the Church of Scientology, to which Presley and her mother, Priscilla, belong, contributed to the rift. "It was an issue at the beginning," said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a Jackson biographer. […] Toya's husband Jack Gordon as family. "La Toya warned Michael that this marriage would be his downfall" said Gordon. "It's one thing to get married, but to Elvis's daughter was totally absurd. Something went wrong in that marriage and Lisa Marie will soon be telling it all, and Michael will be destroyed”.

— AP News, January 20th, 1996 (via mjfa.forum)

“But was she, as has been suggested in published reports, on a mission to lure Jackson into her church? A source close to Presley says no. "Jackson had just been accused of being a pedophile," this source says. “He's not going to help any organization, whether it's the church or the Kiwanis Club. I'd have a harder argument if Kevin Costner were the guy. You could say a lot about Scientologists, but they ain't stupid.”

For the moment, Presley's spirits, friends say, are good. “She's disappointed”, says the close source, “but she's not crying in her soup”. Instead, she is “focusing on being a good mother,” says Paul Bloch-which may, according to Liz Smith, mean reuniting with her children's father. But Presley's camp denies she still has a romantic interest in Keough. "He played no part in the breakup," says the source.”

— Newsweek (January 28, 1996) (via mjfa.forum)

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January 16, 1996: Lisa Marie Presley files for divorce from Michael Jackson

“Somebody had told my mom that Michael was planning on filing for divorce but that it would be better for her if she did it first. […] But the truth was, Michael never intended to file. It was Romeo and Juliet, the poison mistakenly drunk. Michael was incredibly hurt, and my mom tried and tried to reach him, calling and writing him. But he refused to speak to her. My mom always said that was how she learned to ice people, from Michael.”

— Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, from “From Here to the Great Unknown” (2024)

“I told him I wanted a divorce. Then, he didn't talk to me for a couple of weeks.”

— Lisa Marie Presley: Rolling Stone Interview - April 20, 2003 (via rollingstone)

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January, 1996: Scientology leaders pressure Lisa Marie Presley to file for divorce from Michael Jackson

“I was in love with Michael, believe it or not. I didn’t want to leave him. He was in trouble and I wanted to help him. And they made sure that I left him.” […] She said that her affection for him was very real, but that Scientology had its own interests in the union: It had long wanted to bring in Jackson, who had a Jehovah’s Witnesses background. “But then they realized he was getting too much bad press,” she said. […]

To me, however, she said that Scientology was intimately involved in the split. “I was in love with Michael. I wanted to help him,” she said. But there was always a Scientology presence wherever they went. “There was always someone here. Even when we did that ABC Primetime interview, there was always a Scientology handler right there.” In particular, two figures were involved in driving them apart, she said. “DM [David Miscavige] facilitated my divorce with MJ,” she said, claiming that Miscavige and a Scientologist attorney, John P. Coale, pressured her to file for divorce. “I was calling Dave, asking, what do I do? He was a huge MJ fan. He was all over that,” she said. She was told to make sure that Jackson didn’t file for divorce first, because it would give him an advantage in court. “One morning I got a call from John Coale. He said, ‘Michael’s going to make a move. He’s going to file. So I filed.” She explained that she felt pressured to be the first to file for divorce, but then regretted it.”

— Tony Ortega: Lisa Marie Presley on Scientology, its leader David Miscavige, and why she left (January 30, 2023)

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December 10, 1995: Lisa Marie Presley goes to Beth Israel Medical Center North hospital for the last time. Michael Jackson asks her to go home.

“There was a bit of a showdown in the hospital, and I didn't understand what was wrong with him. I didn't know what he was up to. When I started asking too many questions about what was wrong, he asked me to leave. This is the real story. He said, "You're causing trouble." The doctors wanted me to go. I freaked out, because it was all too familiar.”

— Lisa Marie Presley; Playboy Interview, July 30, 2003 (via elvis.com.au)

“He said I was "causing trouble" and "stirring up problems." He told me, "you're making my heart rate go up," and asked me to go home.”

— Lisa Marie Presley Newsweek Interview (April 7, 2003) (via mjfa.forum)

“Michael was being really awful—he got mad at me for asking questions. I said, “What's really happening here? If you have a problem, I'll go with you to rehab”. The doctor started coming after me, threatening me, telling me to stop asking so many questions. I said, “I’m just trying to find out what's going on with my husband.” The doctor and Michael had a meeting, and when the doctor came out of his room, he said, “He wants to talk to you.” In the room, Michael said, “You're causing too many problems here. They're going to take you to the airport, you need to go home until I'm done. I'll see you when I get back. So I left. I wanted him to come, too, but he didn't.”

— Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, from “From Here to the Great Unknown” (2024)

So uneasy, lay your head / On those weary shoulders / I wanted to unburden them / But you wouldn’t let go / Too dirty to clean your hands / Too weary for sober / I was your prescription then / But the bottle ran out

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Weary” from “Storm & Grace” (2012)

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December 8-9, 1995: Lisa Marie Presley goes to Beth Israel Medical Center North alongside Katherine, Janet and Rebbie Jackson. The situation triggers Lisa’s trauma with her father’s death

“His mom was there, too, along with his team, including his own anesthesiologist. Nobody has their own anesthesiologist, every hospital has their own. It was a big red flag. At first, I couldn't get a read on what the fuck was going on, but I started to cotton on to it: He needed somebody around who could legally administer the drugs. I told one of the security team that I wanted to go into his bathroom to see what he was taking. A family member asked me to try to get his urine to test it, but I didn't.”

— Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, from “From Here to the Great Unknown” (2024)

When she tried to talk to Michael about his painkiller addiction, Katherine says he denied it.

“I was very serious about it,” she says. “I was telling him I didn't want to hear one day that he had overdosed, because it would break my heart. But he kept saying he wasn't on anything.”

O: You didn't believe him.

KJ: No, I didn't.

— Katherine Jackson Oprah interview (November 8, 2011)

“I saw the drugs and the doctors walk in and they scared me and put me right back to what I went through with my father.”

— Lisa Marie Presley Oprah Interview (2010)

Was it that I was always trying to save you / And you never wanted me to? / Or was it that I loved you? / You don't seem to see me sinking in, do you? / You're not content in your own head, are you? / You just want to kick me once again, don't you? / Don't you, baby?

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Sinking In” from “To Whom It May Concern” (2003)

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December 7, 1995: Lisa Marie Presley arrives at Beth Israel Medical Center North hospital, New York, to visit Michael Jackson

“He was about to do a giant HBO thing, and I think he didn't want to do it, so he feigned a fall and went to the hospital. I kept asking what was wrong with him, and I got a different answer every day. Karen [Faye], his makeup artist, told me that he'd totally planned it because he didn't want to do the HBO thing. I flew to New York where he was in the hospital and was with him every day.”

— Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough, from “From Here to the Great Unknown” (2024)

“Everybody flew to the hospital. And it was very confusing what was wrong, because every day there was a different report. I couldn't tell what was happening. Dehydration, low blood pressure, exhaustion, a virus, so I couldn't really get a straight answer as to what was happening with him. I think we were all a little bit in the dark. At that point, I think I really got from various indications… I believed that was going on, then.”

— Lisa Marie Presley Oprah interview (2010)

“He was in the hospital, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. I started asking questions, and it was always a different story.”

— Lisa Marie Presley Newsweek Interview (April 7, 2003) (via mjfa.forum)

Do you know who I am? / It's me in here with the doctor and the crowd around me / They are my chosen family / Tell me I'm important / But what about them standing there? They don't get it / They're smiling at me, I guess they're used to this

— Lisa Marie Presley; “Important” from “To Whom It May Concern” (2003)

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December 6, 1995: Michael Jackson collapses on stage during rehearsal for his “One Night Only” HBO television special at the Beacon Theatre, New York

He is rushed to Beth Israel Medical Center North hospital, New York, with dangerous low blood pressure, and dehydration. He remained in the hospital until December 12.

HBO officially postponed and ultimately canceled the concert entirely, and was never rescheduled.

Photo: Michael Jackson and Marcel Marceau rehearsing for “One Night Only”