Las Vegas Weekly

April 2, 2009 · 9:08 AM

Elvis Presley’s former security guard reveals secrets from Down Under

By Robin Leach

Elvis Presley at the International in 1970.

Photo: Promotional

In an extraordinarily candid interview, Elvis Presley’s former bodyguard, 71-year-old Joe Esposito, has revealed some sordid secrets about the music legend and his family, some of which have never been told before.

Joe sometimes works as a casino host at Steve Wynn’s The Wynn, but for the current summer Down Under, Joe has been promoting for the Daiquiri Group, a distributor of beer, cocktail and energy drink brands. While in Australia, he has visited the Gold Coast near Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, where he talked openly with the Herald Sun.

To read the full interview, click HERE.

After Elvis’s death, Joe was tour manager for John Denver, the Bee Gees, Karen Carpenter and Michael Jackson, who married Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. Says Joe: “She was a decoy because he was involved in those child molestation claims. She was just trying to help Michael out at the time. They were friends only.”

Joe, who lives here in Las Vegas, says he met Elvis in 1958 while serving in the Army; the men were stationed together in Germany. In the wide-ranging interview, Joe said that Elvis was religious and struggled to understand his God-given talents, The Beatles’ psychedelic music and drug addiction. He also said Elvis could never be faithful to just one woman because he loved women too much.

Photo: Liberace Museum

Elvis and Liberace do it up madcap-style backstage at the Riviera on Nov. 14, 1956.

According to the article, Priscilla was only 14 when she and Elvis first met. “There was no sex. He was the perfect gentleman. It was just playful and innocent, and she would sit beside him while he played the piano,” Joe said.

The tragedy of Joe’s words comes through when he talked about Elvis’ death from a drug overdose. “I tried to get him to quit his addiction to painkillers. We talked to Elvis over and over and over again. There was nothing more we could do. If a 42-year-old man doesn’t want to help himself, you can’t do a damn thing about it. He has to want to quit. But when he had the heart attack and I called the ambulance to Graceland, I knew it was too late. He was gone.”

Joe also says he had to give Elvis, a multimillionaire, the $15 for his Las Vegas wedding license to marry Priscilla. There’s a host of other tidbits in the tale, and because there’s so many Vegas connections, I urge you to read the story.

Incidentally, while reading through the paper online, check out the story on Vanilla Ice, who is performing there this weekend in the Melbourne V Festival. I never knew he once seriously dated Madonna! Click HERE for that story.

Photo: Pure Management Group

Vanilla Ice performs at Pure.

I filmed Ice -- real name Rob Van Winkle -- in our Vegas-based VH1 reality series Fame Games. Apparently, he dated her when she was posing for sex photos in her 1990 book Sex. They were photographed simulating sex. “I wasn’t too happy with the book when I saw it,” said Ice, who recently hosted a night at McFadden’s Saloon in The Rio. In the newspaper article, he also revealed his battles with heroin addiction and a suicide attempt.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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