Overview

• Grand Central Publishing released Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis on September 23, co‑written with Mary Jane Ross and available in hardcover, e‑book and audiobook.
• In first‑person passages, Presley writes that after she became pregnant on her wedding night Elvis asked if she wanted an abortion and pledged to support her choice.
• She recounts being horrified by Lisa Marie Presley’s 1994 marriage to Michael Jackson, describing Jackson as manipulative and saying his childlike innocence was a crafted public mask.
• The book alleges Elvis asked confidant Joe Esposito to find a hitman to kill karate instructor Mike Stone after learning of her affair, before he was talked down.
• Presley describes Lisa Marie’s long struggles with money and substance abuse, writing that her daughter took up to 80 pills a day before dying in 2023 at age 54.