Desiree Presley: Elvis’s Daughter, Yet Fierce Fan Backlash Continues
Something is brewing in the online public sphere that I need to talk about. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, when I study a subject or person, I go all in. I hop into the rabbit hole and oftentimes only come out to a. work to pay my bills or b. look after my family. For the rest of my time, I live and breathe my muse. The final process of such an undertaking eventually requires releasing the information I have accumulated and the emotions I have held, or I risk the onset of depression and despair. This is the plight of many artists and writers.
I’ve been on a journey of discovery in the last year while I’ve worked on a writing project related to Elvis Presley. It has uncovered so many revelations that the image I had of Elvis at the beginning of the year has evolved into a completely different human being, someone I had no idea existed. I’ve dug so deep into the nuances and complexities of his life and personality that he rents space in my head even when I am focusing on other things. I have wavered through an array of feelings and emotions, some deeply heartfelt and joyous and others dark and painful, like I’m remembering a loved one who has passed. I’ve had to find grace and accept things about Elvis I did not want to accept. I’ve had moments of deep love for him that could be considered inappropriate for a man who died forty-seven years ago, eight and a half months before I was born. When I say I go all in, I mean it. I feel as much as I can feel to understand Elvis as fully as I can — his humor, his pain, his sex appeal, his depression, his helplessness, his guilt, his generosity, his artistry, his obligations and responsibilities, his intellect, his love for God, you name it. You can paint a picture.
Recently, I read Are You Lonesome Tonight by Dary Matera and Lucy de Barbin, a book published in 1987. My book review and thoughts are in my blog post The Secret Life of Elvis Presley. I was transported into a story I was unprepared for emotionally or psychologically. Lucy’s story about her twenty-four-year relationship with Elvis, and the daughter they made from love, hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the most emotionally charged love story I have ever read. I would encourage anyone who hasn’t read this story to do so with an open heart and mind. You will not regret it!
Coincidently as I read Are You Lonesome Tonight, I came across a YouTube channel titled Rare Elvis Photos, a fan channel hosted by country singer and businessman, Joe Sins. Joe and I happened to be reading Lucy’s story simultaneously. Was it happenstance or something willed from beyond? I asked Elvis if there was something more I needed to know about him, and he answered, or perhaps something deep inside of me put the psychic energy forth to seek the answers for those less inclined to believe in our ability to talk to the deceased. The next thing I knew, Joe was interviewing the co-author of Lucy’s book, Dary Matera. They now engage in a weekly chat to discuss life, Lucy’s story, Elvis, and other projects. They are an enjoyable pair if you like fun, unscripted banter. I revel in it!
One thing I can tell you about Joe is that he has a heart of a lion. He is steadfast in his commitment and speaks with conviction to uncover the truth. His faith is unwavering. He is dedicated to helping Lucy’s daughter Desiree seek answers to her paternal lineage. Some people have said wayward things about him and questioned his credibility to protect their interests and avoid their fears. I believe this is due to a lack of understanding and knowledge of Lucy’s story and outside influences that superficially threaten the publicly accepted consensus of who Elvis was in their eyes. We all know what has happened in the last few years and how widely accepted narratives can skew facts and fabricate lies, an approach that hurts more people than it protects.
Graceland has been a mainstay tourist attraction and family shrine for decades. This would not be possible without Elvis’ father Vernon Presley’s initial protection of Elvis’ estate and Priscilla Beaulieu’s, professionally known as Priscilla Presley, willingness to uphold her ex-husband’s legacy. She has done this in her way and protected the interests of her family. No matter how you feel about this, Vernon and Priscilla agreed on how that estate would operate until Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, took over the reins. It is now in the hands of various investors involved in Elvis Presley Enterprises with Elvis and Priscilla’s granddaughter Riley Keough at the helm, a position I believe suits her mature, methodical, and conscientious personality.
Riley is protective like her grandfather in a way that is compassionate and loyal, yet guarded, an approach that is distinct from her mother’s more emotionally invested approach and her grandmother’s seemingly hard-headed, business-minded approach. On the same note, Elvis fans are divided on Priscilla and her involvement in the Elvis Presley estate. I do not have strong opinions about Priscilla. I believe, like anyone, she deserves the benefit of the doubt. People are not that simple. They make decisions based on a complex set of circumstances according to their belief systems and life experiences. I would imagine Elvis was not an easy man to be married to and this likely affected how Priscilla felt about herself and her outlook on life being essentially raised by him from the time she moved to Graceland at seventeen, and likely during her long-distance relationship with Elvis from 1958 to 1963.
But I am not here to discuss Elvis’ relationship with Priscilla or Graceland. I am here to discuss the possibility that Elvis might have fathered more than one child. A subject that has been gaining traction in recent weeks, likely pushed along by the popular release of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022), Lisa Marie and Riley Keough’s book From Here to the Great Unknown (Random House, 2024), and Jason Hehir’s recent Netflix documentary Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley (2024). Elvis is hot right now and people are clinging to the man, the myth, the legend; a line I find almost comical as all I see now is the man. The image is an external fabrication I can no longer entertain. I have stripped this man down two ways to Sunday. There isn’t any other way to study an individual in my opinion.
Let’s first start with the story of Lucy de Barbin. Warning! This is not for the faint of heart. Lucy was an eleven-year-old child bride who was sold to the highest bidder, a man I shall not name at this time. You can do your due diligence on Google. This man was about forty-five years old when he bought Lucy from her French American, Louisiana-based grandmother via a marriage broker in 1947. Lucy was forced to marry this man against her will and was repeatedly raped and abused by him. She had two children by the time she was fourteen. Although she had an immaculate roof over her head and a formal Catholic school education, she lived a life of child slavery and exploitation that she eventually refused to tolerate.
When Lucy de Barbin was sixteen, she had two jobs that would release her from the prison that surrounded her life. Her first job was as a dancer on KNOE’s Mr. Music Show, a short-lived Monroe, Louisiana-based variety television show hosted by Morry Twomey featuring Lucy de Barbin as one of the dancers who opened the show. Her second job was as a window dresser at Silverstein’s Women’s Apparel, also in Monroe, where she resided between 1947 and 1958. The store promoted her to make-up buyer and public liaison working with prominent figures such as Coco Chanel as a French translator and Hawaiian designer Alfred Shaheen, a personal favorite of mine. Lucy was also a singer who took part-time gigs at weddings and in Catholic church services, a translator for French delegates in Texas, a fashion designer, and a theology instructor throughout her life. She was wickedly sharp, highly intelligent, and smoothly articulate; traits, I believe, that were very attractive to Elvis Presley.
Lucy met Elvis in 1953 when he was working the Dixie circuit between Memphis and Shreveport, Louisiana, the location of the Louisiana Hayride. One night, he sang solo at a political party for ex-Louisiana governor Richard Noe, owner of KNOE. Lucy was a dancer hired to entertain at Mr. Noe’s party. Elvis was captivated by her, and they fell in love, but their relationship was complicated due to Lucy’s situation and Elvis’ eventual rising fame. Despite their setbacks, compromises, and decisions, their relationship stood the test of time lasting twenty-four years up until Elvis’ death.
In August of 1958, ten days after Elvis’ mother, Gladys Presley’s death, Lucy gave birth to Desiree Romaine Presley. Elvis was unaware of Desiree’s birth and was about to be shipped to Germany for service in the United States Army that October. He pleaded with Lucy to be with him in Texas while he trained, but she couldn’t bear the public scrutiny and scandal that would have unleashed. Anita Wood took her place. Lucy was adamant that their relationship be kept a secret to avoid the destruction of his career and having to face the trauma of her past. Now divorced and with three children to raise, and Elvis’ child on the way, Lucy hid in Colorado near her sister following death threats from her ex-husband due to her affair with Elvis. She was caught in a snowstorm on her way which sparked rumors of her death throughout the town of Monroe that eventually reached Elvis when he tried to contact her at Silverstein’s upon his return from Germany in 1960.
Elvis and Lucy would not see each other again until 1967 when a former colleague at Silverstein’s Women’s Apparel ran into Lucy at a fashion trade show in Dallas, Texas where she was remarried to a man she worked with, an agreed upon marriage of convenience to help support her children and provide a family, and two more children, for her second husband. When Elvis realized Lucy was alive, he was beside himself. He called her sobbing uncontrollably and regretful, but Lucy was traumatized and afraid. Elvis was also then newly married to Priscilla. As a side note: One of the stories that Priscilla told in both Baz’s Elvis and Priscilla’s Elvis and Me (Berkley, 1985) is that Elvis wanted to separate when she was pregnant with Lisa Marie. This is because he found Lucy and could not bear losing her again. You must view this from the perspective of a young man who was at a turning point in his career, newly married, and likely overwhelmed by his circumstances. I do not question the love he had for his child and his wife, Priscilla.
Lucy kept Elvis at arm’s length and was hesitant to let him into her children’s lives, including revealing that they shared a child. Lucy valued her privacy and her relationship with Elvis. She couldn’t emotionally handle being in the public eye with Elvis. She wanted the private Elvis, the man, not the image. I believe her trauma with her abusive ex-husband and her inability to fully trust Elvis, played a part in her decision-making. Elvis and Lucy would continue to meet in hotel rooms and speak over the phone up until a few days before he died. They discussed marriage multiple times through the years, before and after his divorce from Priscilla, and planned to marry after he completed a series of concerts he had scheduled in August 1977.
Lucy claimed Elvis wanted to make changes, fire some of his staff, and break it off with Ginger Alden. Of course, their plans did not materialize. Elvis would befall an untimely death due to illness and pharmaceutical dependency and Lucy would move on with her life at least on the surface, keeping Desiree a secret. It wasn’t until Desiree was exposed by some individuals circulating the entourage of Julio Iglesias in the early 1980s, whom Desiree was connected to through Julio’s doctor, that people began following her and asking questions. Desiree confronted her mother with the help of author Dary Matera. With some convincing, Lucy would eventually divulge her story, painstakingly. Dary says it took him two years to get information from Lucy who was protective of her personal relationship with Elvis.
People ask why Desiree has not pursued paternity. The answer is that it would require legal action or the voluntary involvement of Elvis Presley’s family members to obtain valid DNA. Legal proceedings are expensive and a challenge that would require additional steps and stress, without a guarantee that Elvis’ family would agree to provide DNA. The other option would require a compassionate and conscientious effort to relieve Desiree of years of not knowing if Elvis is in fact her father. It is yet to be determined whether someone from Elvis’ family will step forward and place the widely accepted narrative and the Elvis and Priscilla fairytale on the line.
Radio interview with Lucy and Desiree:
With the onset of the internet, the walls are already crumbling. In the age of information, we seek truth, absolute truth. We are no longer willing to buy into one-sided narratives. We are evolving beyond secret lives hidden behind shame, guilt, and embarrassment. We are exposing our vulnerabilities to further our growth and development both emotionally and spiritually as a species, tapping into our divine energy and potential. No one with a realistic outlook on life buys into the narrative that Elvis was perfect and beholden to one woman.
Elvis loved many women and did it freely before it was publicly acceptable. You would have to live under a rock not to see this man was magnetic and extremely handsome. Some straight men claim they would have slept with Elvis. When Elvis was coming of age, birth control was dodgy at best. It was impossible to be with a woman without having a high chance she might become pregnant; add a loving relationship that spanned three decades and that possibility is even higher. It’s preposterous to think Elvis only had one child!
So, this is an open letter to those who can help Desiree. Will you help her find some closure or would you rather she lives out the rest of her life not knowing? Is that what you would want for your child or yourself if you were unsure who your father was? We know Elvis’ will contains a clause that protects the Presley Estate from claims by unlawful children, so what’s the concern, especially since we live in a time when anything goes? Our dirty laundry is sitting squarely on the table at every turn. The general public isn’t phased by it anymore. The age of hiding behind veils is over. We must create a world where we value each other and love one another, or we descend into further separation and chaos.
On another note, Netflix is planning another docuseries on Elvis’ paternity with at least three other possible children. The truth will prevail.
Here are the other children in question:
John Dennis Smith, country musician. John was born in July 1961 to Zona Marie Roach, a young mother of two daughters in Edinburgh, Texas. She supposedly had a short fling with Elvis after a concert in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1960 upon Elvis’ return from the army. Elvis was supposedly present on the day of his birth and Elvis’ name is on John’s birth certificate with supporting documentation such as his driver’s license and army documentation. Zona was not equipped to care for her children, and they were adopted by a member of Elvis’ family. John was sheltered from his knowledge of Elvis but claimed he received gifts from Elvis and child support. Elvis also had a periphery presence in John’s life at certain family gatherings. John, who also went by his middle name Dennis when he was younger, did not find out about his father until he was twenty-seven.
Here he is singing:
Elvis Presley Jr. (aka, Phillip Stanic) was supposedly the result of a short affair between Elvis and Angelique Pettyjohn, an extra in two of Elvis’ movies. Colonel Parker apparently intervened and arranged for Phillip’s adoption to Las Vegas circus performers, Anna and Jacob Stanic. Phillip was also a circus performer and animal trainer. He eventually became an Elvis impersonator when he realized he could make a living as a singer. He would officially change his name to Elvis Presley Jr. for publicity but is adamant about not making claims to the estate. Elvis did not know Phillip existed but met him with a group of other performers when Phillip was sixteen in between shows in Las Vegas.
Phillip’s interview:
Deborah Presley Brando’s mother, Barbara Jean Lewis, supposedly met Elvis in a North Carolina recording studio in 1954 with his cousin Gene Smith when he was nineteen and she was fourteen. She lived down the street and would go there to hang out with the other teenagers who hung around the studio. She had an intimate encounter with Elvis in June of 1955 while he was touring. Deborah’s mother married shortly after giving birth to her and never told Elvis. Deborah discovered her paternity when she confronted her mother in April of 1977 suspecting Elvis was her father. She said her mother became very upset and refused to tell her. Her mother eventually confessed the day Elvis died.
Deborah’s interview:
I write this article with love. We all deserve the benefit of the doubt and to have our stories heard. I couldn’t imagine being a child who was told Elvis was your father and then being unable to verify its validity. I hope that each one of these individuals who claims to be the child of Elvis Presley can find closure. I don’t know if the last three individuals I have included in this article are Elvis’ children, as I do not know nor could I verify their stories with a substantial number of facts. I do believe that Desiree Presley is the daughter of Elvis Presley, and I would like to see her either approached publicly or privately so that she can heal from years of not knowing and being treated like a pariah.
I wish you all a Happy New Year! Let’s go into 2025 with compassion, empathy, and understanding.
S. Angell is a published poet, writer, philosopher, and video blogger. She explores various topics, including love, life, death, history, and society from a philosophical perspective. You can find her on Instagram @rainydaypoetess
