Elvis Presley is remembered as a music legend and heartthrob who was lost too soon.
But the HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher reveals a different side of the King of Rock and Roll. The film was released in 2018 and, at the premiere, Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla Presley spoke about the final days of her former love.
Priscilla Presley: "You did not tell Elvis Presley what to do"
Priscilla revealed that there were not only highs but also many lows in her marriage to Elvis, which is why she ultimately divorced him in 1973.
To this day, fans ask why Priscilla didn't intervene to help Elvis with the drug addiction that contributed to his death from a heart attack at age 42.
At the 2018 premiere of Elvis Presley: The Searcher, Priscilla said: "People go, well, 'Why didn't anyone do anything?' Well, that's not true. People there in the inner group did, but you did not tell Elvis Presley what to do."
Elvis Presley's tragic drug addiction
She went on to say that she even tried to hide the pills under pillows and under the phone, but he would know. Elvis suffered from insomnia and was afraid of falling asleep, which led to a sleeping pill addiction.
According to Priscilla, Elvis began taking pills regularly during his two-year military stay in Germany in the late 1950s.
"And if you take a sleeping pill, you have to do something to get yourself awake … He was in unchartered territory, he truly was, and he did this and tried to do this alone," Priscilla said.
"It was difficult for all of us, we certainly didn't see it coming," she added, speaking about Presley's death. "But we certainly saw the journey he was taking."
Elvis died of a heart attack in 1977 at the age of 42.