Introduction:
The story began with something Elvis Presley himself suggested: karate.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while Elvis was spending much of his time performing in Las Vegas and touring across America, Priscilla was often left at Graceland. According to Priscilla’s accounts, Elvis wanted her to have something of her own, so he introduced her to Mike Stone, a respected Hawaiian karate instructor and former champion whom Elvis knew and admired.
What began as lessons gradually became something far more complicated.
Stone was not simply a stranger who appeared in Priscilla’s life. He belonged to a world Elvis himself valued deeply. Karate was one of the few passions the singer pursued outside music and celebrity, and he personally helped bring the two together. Over time, the friendship developed into an affair that Priscilla kept from Elvis for a considerable period.
When she finally told him in February 1972, the reaction was explosive.
Accounts from people around Elvis describe him becoming consumed by anger and jealousy. He reportedly told members of his entourage that Stone should be killed and asked his road manager, Joe Esposito, about finding someone to carry out the job. Later, in Las Vegas, accounts describe Elvis becoming so enraged that he pulled an M-16 from a wardrobe and threatened Stone. He was reportedly sedated, only to become agitated again after the medication wore off.
These stories are dramatic, but there is another detail that makes the episode especially revealing: Elvis himself later acknowledged that pride and ego had driven his reaction.
That admission is important because Elvis was hardly innocent when it came to infidelity. Priscilla knew about his relationships with other women, and by her own accounts, his affairs had been an established part of their troubled marriage. What devastated Elvis, however, was discovering that Priscilla had been seeing someone else—and that the man was someone Elvis had personally introduced to her.
Their marriage had already been deteriorating for years. They had married in 1967, and Lisa Marie Presley was born the following year. As Elvis’s career became increasingly demanding, he spent long periods away from home, while Priscilla remained largely at Graceland.
In 1972, she left the marriage.
Their divorce was finalized in October 1973, yet the end of their marriage was surprisingly peaceful in public. Photographs of Elvis and Priscilla leaving the Santa Monica courthouse hand-in-hand became one of the defining images of their relationship. They remained connected through Lisa Marie and continued to describe their bond as one that never completely disappeared.
But behind that public image, Elvis was entering one of the most difficult periods of his life. His health deteriorated, his dependence on prescription medication became increasingly serious, and the relentless demands of touring continued.
It would be wrong to claim that the divorce caused Elvis’s decline or death. His health problems had deeper roots, and his physical deterioration was already underway before Priscilla left.
Still, the story of Mike Stone reveals something important about Elvis Presley: beneath the legendary performer was a man struggling with insecurity, possessiveness, pride and a marriage that had quietly fallen apart.
Perhaps the most striking part is that Elvis eventually recognized it himself.
He reportedly admitted that his desire to see Stone punished was ultimately about his own pride and ego.
That may be the most honest ending to the story.
Elvis and Priscilla’s marriage did not end with one dramatic betrayal alone. It ended after years of distance, complicated expectations and two people who could no longer live inside the same version of their relationship.
And in the middle of it all was a karate lesson Elvis had arranged himself—an innocent gesture that, years later, became part of one of the most painful chapters of his life.