Inside Priscilla Presley's Relationship With Marco Garibaldi

Most of Priscilla Presley's life has been on display, seemingly for public consumption. When she was just 14 years old, she met Elvis Presley, one of the most famous people in the world. By the time she was in her early 20s, Priscilla was married to Elvis, and from then on, every detail of her life, particularly her relationships, was of interest to someone. Priscilla's relationship with Elvis was especially intriguing to the public. From the ages they were when they met and their lavish lifestyle to the end of their marriage, people wanted to know about the extremely famous couple.

Since his death in 1977, Priscilla has been forthcoming about her relationship with Elvis, including publishing her memoir, "Elvis and Me," in 1985 and opening up about their sex life in a press conference at the 2023 Venice Film Festival ahead of the film "Priscilla." "I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving, but he also respected the fact I was only 14 years old. We were more in-line in thought, and that was our relationship," she said, as reported by People.

One aspect of Priscilla's life hasn't been quite so public, however — her relationship with Marco Garibaldi. The two were in a romantic relationship for over two decades and share a little-known son, but not much else is revealed about their time together. Here's a look inside Priscilla Presley's relationship with Marco Garibaldi.

Priscilla Presley was not Marco Garibaldi's first love. By the time the two had met, both had already been seriously involved with at least one other person. Garibaldi's relationships are not as well-documented as Priscilla's, but their son, Navarone Garcia, shared with People that near the beginning of Priscilla and Garibaldi's relationship, Priscilla received a call from one of Garibaldi's exes. "He's not who you think he is," the woman said, according to Navarone Garcia. "My mom pretty much said, 'Don't call here again,' because she didn't know what to do with that information."

Elvis Presley was not Priscilla's only famous lover. In addition to her marriage to the King of Rock and Roll, Priscilla had relationships with one of O.J. Simpson's attorneys and father to three of the most famous women in the world, Robert Kardashian, and model and actor Michael Edwards. She also reportedly had a one-night stand with "Pretty Woman" actor Richard Gere, as well as a brief dalliance with famed singer Julio Iglesias. 

Despite dating multiple men after her split from Elvis, Priscilla's heart belonged to her ex-husband. "It wasn't that I didn't love him. He was the love of my life, but it was the lifestyle that was so difficult for me," Priscilla said to reporters in 2023 at the Venice Film Festival, as reported by Reuters. Priscilla was in attendance for the premiere of "Priscilla," the film based on her 1985 autobiography.

Priscilla Presley and Marco Garibaldi met in 1983 through a mutual friend. They seemingly hit it off, because not long after meeting, Garibaldi moved into Priscilla's home in Beverly Hills. At the time they met, Priscilla had begun pursuing an acting career in earnest, and she had a role in the hit TV series "Dallas." The home that the two lived in was a sprawling eight-bedroom estate with a pool and tennis court built in 1951. Priscilla had purchased the property in the 1970s after her divorce from Elvis Presley. "We were very, very close, and I wanted to make sure his house was near to our daughter, Lisa Marie [Presley]," Priscilla told Closer of her real-estate purchase.

While the house had a piano and plenty of space for inhabitants to play music intimately, Priscilla reportedly didn't listen to her ex-husband's music in her home while Garibaldi lived there. "I think my dad had a bit of a complex about it," Navarone Garcia said in an interview with People. "It wasn't until after he left that my mom started playing his music again freely," he added. Priscilla was certainly a fan of her ex-husband's music. In an interview with Larry King on CNN, the actor shared that "Can't Help Falling in Love," "In the Ghetto," and "Suspicious Minds" were among her favorite songs by Elvis.

Priscilla Presley entered her relationship with Marco Garibaldi with one child from her marriage with Elvis Presley. Priscilla gave birth to Lisa Marie Presley on February 1, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, and the family lived at Elvis' Graceland estate until Elvis and Priscilla split up. In 1986, just two years after Priscilla and Garibaldi had begun dating, a representative of Priscilla's, Paul Bloch, announced via the Chicago Tribune that Priscilla was pregnant with her second child. "Priscilla and her fiancé, Marco Garibaldi, are expecting a child in the early part of next year,” Bloch said. "It's coincidental, but the character Priscilla plays in 'Dallas,' Jenna Wade, is also unmarried and pregnant by Bobby Ewing," Bloch added.

In 1987, Priscilla gave birth to her and Garibaldi's son, Navarone Garcia. Despite being the son of one of the most famous women in the world at the time, not much was known about Garcia. "A lot of people know about me, but they don't know me," Garcia said in a 2023 interview with People. Although Garcia doesn't share the same notoriety as other members of his family, he has been open about certain aspects of his own life as an adult. Priscilla's son shares the love for music that his entire family has and is in a band called Them Guns. He's also shared that he overcame an addiction to fentanyl, a success that he credits partially to his wife, Elisa Achilli.

Elvis Presley died in 1977, well before Priscilla Presley met Marco Garibaldi. Just a couple of years after Elvis' death, his father, Vernon Presley, the executor of Elvis' estate, died, leaving Priscilla and Joseph A. Hanks, their accountant, in charge of the Graceland estate that Priscilla and Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was named to inherit. "I worried about my daughter's future and about Graceland and the people who had worked for us for 20 years ... The question I kept asking myself over and over was, 'What are we ever going to do?'" Priscilla said to The L.A. Times about the predicament. What Priscilla did was turn Graceland into a money-making machine.

Priscilla had some help in this venture. As noted, Hanks was involved in the rehabilitation of Elvis' estate, but Garibaldi had a hand in making money for the estate, too. Though his exact role isn't widely publicized, Garibaldi has long been credited for helping develop merchandising for Graceland. Whatever Garibaldi implemented proved to be profitable for the estate — by 1989, Elvis Presley's Graceland was worth $75 million. In 2022, Elvis' estate earned $110 million, with merchandise sales responsible for much of that total amount. Perhaps it was Garibaldi's entrepreneurial spirit that made him such an asset to the Elvis estate. Garibaldi has had many different professional ventures in his life, including starting Godfather Entertainment, the production company responsible for films such as "Across the Hall" with Brittany Murphy.

Despite Priscilla Presley's massive fame, she and Marco Garibaldi lived an incredibly private life together. The couple took care of their son, Navarone Garcia, and they both worked. Priscilla was partially responsible for overseeing Elvis Presley's estate, and she acted in multiple projects, like "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad," its sequels, and "Melrose Place," before taking a hiatus for more than 10 years, starting in 1999. Garibaldi was involved in the entertainment industry, too, directing three episodes of the TV series "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" in 1995. In a 2003 interview on CNN with Larry King, Priscilla said of Garibaldi, "He doesn't — you know, he lets me do what I need to do. You know, basically, in anything. But he's very supportive, 100%. And I think in a relationship, one needs that."

Aside from that interview, Priscilla did not speak about Garibaldi much in public, and Garibaldi kept a low profile, too. The director seemingly cared about his privacy, and Priscilla had always valued privacy since she was with Elvis, as he valued it, too. Elvis was so concerned with privacy that to maintain it, he had a privacy wall with one-way mirrors installed at Graceland. Priscilla has also noted that her respect for Elvis' privacy is one reason he fell in love with her. "He just was actually stunned that I didn't reveal [their relationship]," Priscilla told The Hollywood Reporter.

In 2006, after more than 20 years together, Marco Garibaldi and Priscilla Presley split up. The former couple has been very tight-lipped about their relationship since its end, and it's unlikely either party will ever share details about their decades-long relationship in the future. When they began dating, Priscilla reportedly made Garibaldi sign a document vowing never to write a book about her. Priscilla has shared, though, why she never married Garibaldi. "To be honest with you, I never wanted to marry after [Elvis Presley]. I never had any desire. No one could ever match him," Priscilla said at an event in Las Vegas in 2023, as reported by Blast.

Priscilla continued dating after separating from Garibaldi. Shortly after their breakup, Priscilla reportedly began dating Nigel Lythgoe, a producer behind "So You Think You Can Dance" and "American Idol." After Lythgoe, for a short period, Priscilla was involved with Richie Palmer, a restauranteur and actor who, despite having had roles in films like "Malevolence" and "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," is best known for his relationship with former model Raquel Welch. Us Weekly claimed that Priscilla also had a relationship with actor and radio DJ Toby Anstis, but both have denied any romantic connection. In keeping with his behavior while he was dating Priscilla, Garibaldi has never publicly shared whether he entered another relationship after he and Priscilla broke up, nor whether he had any more children.

While Marco Garibaldi and Priscilla Presley have refrained from completing interviews about their time together, their son, Navarone Garcia, has given glimpses into their family dynamic while his parents were in a relationship. According to Garcia, he and Garibaldi didn't have a close relationship while his parents were together. They did grow closer after the split, though. "The disciplinarian role didn't work between us, but the friend role did. He wanted someone to go out drinking with," Garcia told People.

Garcia shed further light on his father, sharing that, in 2017, he learned that his father had come to the United States from Brazil, not from Italy, as he had told his son. Garcia claims that Garibaldi changed his last name, too, in hopes of being more successful in Hollywood. After Garcia asked his father about what he had learned, his father stopped speaking to him. "I lost one family member, but I gained 20-plus. I have zero regrets," Garcia said of the change in their relationship. Despite his fractured relationship with his father, Garcia is close to his mother. Presley posted a photo on Instagram of herself and Garcia with actor Cailee Spaeny at the Los Angeles premiere of "Priscilla" in October 2023, and earlier that year, she posted another photo on Instagram promoting Garcia's band, sharing that she would be attending a then-upcoming show of theirs.