Inside the secret wedding between Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley

He was the King of Pop, she was the daughter of the King of Rock; he had Neverland, she had Graceland.

When Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were wed 30 years ago on May 26, 1994, the union thrust together two of the biggest names in the music history. 

However despite the media circus that surrounded them, the couple, then 35 and 26 respectively, managed to travel to the Dominican Republic for an incredibly private ceremony that was so secret it took weeks for the world to cotton on.

Sadly, it was a marriage that would end up lasting 20 months. The union came after 13 year old Jordan Chandler and his father, dentist Evan Chandler, alleged that Jackson had sexually abused the boy.

Lisa Marie – who had inherited a multi-million-pound estate from her father Elvis Presley – would later admit the marriage had featured an element of ‘puppeteering’. 

How Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley met

Lisa Marie, the only child of singer and actor Elvis and actress Priscilla, first encountered Michael Jackson at a Jackson Five show in 1975 when she was seven-years-old.

Their paths wouldn’t cross again for another 17 years. According to a friend of Presley, ‘their adult friendship began in November 1992 in LA’ when they were introduced through their music connections. Jackson proposed marriage over the phone, Rolling Stone magazine learned in a 2003 interview with Presley.

Presley had previously been married to Chicago-born musician Danny Keough; the pair had said ‘I Do’ at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles on October 3, 1988. The pair had two children together; daughter Riley – who is an actress – and son Benjamin – a musician who died in 2020.

They got a ‘quickee divorce’ in 1994. Just months later, Jackson and Presley got married.

Presley’s mother Pricilla was said to be distrusting of Jackson’s true intentions when the pair first grew close. Presley, whose father died in August 1977, had become sole heir to the Elvis estate in 1993. The vast fortune was worth around $100 million by the time she was just 25.

Pricilla was said to be fearful that Jackson had been lured by her daughter’s money and enticed by the ‘distraction’ a wedding could bring from the child molestation charges made against him in 1993.

However, Presley never questioned her husband’s innocence. In Randy Taraborrelli’s 2003 book about Michael’s life, The Magic And The Madness, she said: ‘I believed he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it.’ 

In January 1994, Presley persuaded Jackson to settle the allegations out of court. At the time, his legal team ‘stressed that this was not an admission of guilt.’

A wedding fit for music royalty

Jackson and Presley touched down in a private plane at the La Romana airport in La Vega, the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, May 25, 1994 and stayed in a luxury villa in the Casa de Campo resort. 

While the usual wall of paparazzi that followed them everywhere was absent, a gaggle of representatives, aids and lawyers were among the wedding party. 

The ceremony took place the following day on Thursday May 26, 1994. Jackson and Presley had, according to local reports, the wedding officiated by civil judge Hugo Álvarez Pére at his house in El Campito, in a sleepy and rural corner of La Vega. Jackson wore all-black with a hat and studded belt, while Presley opted for a beige-coloured dress and a bouquet of flowers. 

The brief ceremony began at 11am and lasted less than 15 minutes. That wasn’t the original plan, however. Pére revealed to reporters that Jackson’s lawyers had contacted him the year before and explained he wanted to be wed in a plane above the Dominican Republic. This would have been against the country’s rules.

Pérez had vowed to keep the wedding a secret, but admitted basic details after he was approached by an American journalist who had got their hands on a copy of Jackson and Presley’s marriage certificate. The judge was allegedly offered $5,000 to share exactly what happened, which he declined. Instead, he spoke to Listín Diario, a local newspaper in the region.

‘It is Latoya [Jackson’s sister] who reveals the information to the press, so they come to the country to investigate,’ Pérez had told the Listín Diario. He told the publication that Jackson had ‘the behavior of a child’ during their interactions, ‘because he didn’t look up.’

He added: ‘The impression he gave me was that of a shy person, especially because of his way of being. We had a short conversation of about three minutes.

‘Among other things he asked me if he was married and if he had children. I told him that he had three children, so he told me that when I returned to Los Angeles I should contact his lawyers to visit a ranch he had and that my children would love.’

Pérez had told reporters that bodyguards had checked his home top to bottom before Jackson and Presley entered. The ceremony was conducted in Spanish, as per Dominican marriage laws, with a lawyer translating for the happy couple. 

According to official documents, Lisa Marie’s friend Eve Darling and Thomas Keough, the brother of her ex husband Danny, had signed as witnesses. 

When the secret came out

It took more than two months for the world to realise the King of Pop had married the late King of Rock’s daughter. There were rumours, but the media hadn’t been convinced. ‘They say they got married somewhere outside the United States’, US talk-show host David Letterman told his audience. ‘Where was that, Neptune?’

The news was finally made public on August 1, 1994, through a statement sent to the media. In it, Presley wrote: ‘My married name is Mrs Lee Marie Presley-Jackson. My marriage to Michael Jackson took place in a private ceremony outside the United States 11 weeks ago. It was not formally announced until now for several reasons;  foremost being that we are both very private people living in the glare of the public media. I am very much in love with Michael,  I dedicate my life to being his wife.’

Jackson attended the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards with Presley at his side. ‘Just think about it, no one thought it would last’, he told the audience, before kissing his wife. 

In June 1995 they appeared on television to promote Jackson’s new album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. Presley said emphatically that the couple intended to have children.

Things still seemed strong between the pair in August, when Presley starred in the music video for Jackson’s song You Are Not Alone, directed by Wayne Isham. The newlyweds frolicked together semi nude in a temple scene.

Isham later told People Magazine: ‘They had [an] innocent, playful relationship that I felt was a real relationship. 

‘It was in that newlywed fun and humor and laughter and smiles that you can see. So it was all very positive. People have asked me this before, it’s like, “Is there a reality to their relationship, and what was going on there?” It was all very fun. They had a great time and great relationship on the set, so the best I can reflect off of is that.’

However, less than a year later, the relationship had come to an abrupt end.

The break up

Doubts had long been raised about the strength of the union between the popstar and his wife. The relationship was said to be ‘overwhelmingly to Jackson’s advantage’ as he attempted to ‘re-build his image’ following the initial stages of the sexual abuse scandal. Journalist Ann Marie Hourihane, writing in the Sunday Tribune on August 7, 1994, questioned if the relationship had been ‘a co-orporate merger’ of sorts, due to the vast wealth the couple each boasted.

Presley filed for divorce on January 18, 1996 after 19 months of marriage, citing ‘irreconcilable differences’. The action came two weeks before she turned 28 and was due to collect £35,000,000 from the Elvis estate. The next day, Jackson’s publicist told the press: ‘Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley have agreed to part ways. However, they remain good friends.’

The following day – on January 19, 1996 – the Daily Mirror reported that there would be one member of Lisa Marie’s family rejoicing at the news. An anonymous source close to Pricilla Presley told the newspaper: ‘Nothing will delight her [Priscilla] more than to see Jackson take a moonwalk from this sham marriage. There was never a marriage – they had a union manufactured by Hollywood spin doctors.’ 

In a column for the paper, journalist Tina Weaver had claimed the marriage was ‘a sham from start to finish.’ Two years earlier she had been named Reporter of the Year for exposing his relationships with young boys while working at the – now defunct – Today Newspaper.

In her 1996 article, Weaver fumed: ‘It [the wedding] was as farcical as the 15-minute ceremony in the judge’s front room in the Dominican Republic which united them as man and wife in May, 1994.’ Weaver claimed Presley had been a ‘mother figure’ to Jackson who would have ‘moonwalked backwards out the bedroom window if he was expected to make love to a woman.’

The couple finalised their divorce on August 20, 1996. 

Jackson returned to Neverland and married dermatologist Debbie Rowe, who shared children Prince and Paris with the hitmaker. Meanwhile Presley went on to marry actor Nicolas Cage in 2002 until they divorced in 2004. She then wed Michael Lockwood and had two more children, before the couple divorced in 2021.

Moving on

After Jackson’s death in 2009, Presley was reported to have ‘felt shattered.’

She penned several now-deleted blog posts on MySpace, stressing that the union was real, but described an element of ‘manipulation’ the KIng of Pop’s entire life had. Presley wrote: ‘He was brought up that way. He was conditioned to get himself where he needed to go for his career, and he became very good at making and creating and puppeteering. … I always confused that manipulation thinking that it meant he didn’t love me. But I understand it better now. 

‘The manipulation was a survival tactic for him.’

Former maid Adrian McManus, who worked at Jackson’s Neverland ranch for four years, alleged the late singer had an ‘agenda’ with his marriage to Presley.

Speaking to Mail Online in 2019, McManus said: ‘I don’t think he was being genuine to her. He wanted Elvis’ legacy and I think Lisa was kind of played for a fool, sad to say. But I think she learned.’

McManus went on to claim that Michael and Presley had a ‘strange relationship’ and believed there was a lack of ‘chemistry’.

She alleged: ‘I never saw them have any real genuine romantic interaction. She came to the house quite a few times, but they were always fooling around. They were more like friends than lovers.’

Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 when he was 50-years-old. Speaking to Oprah in the aftermath, Presley had again tried to convince fans the relationship was real, stating: ‘When we were together, we were really in love.’

Tragically, Presley’s life was also cut short when she died, at the age of 54, on January 13, 2023.

The relationship between the two members of the music aristocracy nevertheless has gone down in history as one of showbiz world’s strangest love affairs, and many questions remain unanswered today.

But Presley always maintained the love was real.

Speaking to celebrity journalist J. Randy Taraborrelli in 2003, she explained: ‘I believed he didn’t do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. 

‘I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it.’

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing [email protected] 

Share your views in the comments below.

MORE : Doctor Who star gets mistaken for a Paralympian all the time ‘just because she’s disabled’

MORE : Michael Jackson’s son engages in unusual balcony behaviour 22 years after he was dangled from window

MORE : ‘When my pet rat died, I buried her in my father’s grave’