Elvis Presley purportedly hatched a plan to have his wife Priscilla Presley's lover, karate teacher Mike Stone, murdered during the last years of their marriage, RadarOnline reports.
The salacious accusation is revealed in Priscilla's new book, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, which explains how her affair with Stone in the early 1970s drove Elvis into a fit of rage.
As RadarOnline reports, Priscilla wrote that Elvis told his road manager, Joe Esposito, to arrange a hitman.
She continued: "Elvis found the thought of me with another man unbearable. In the weeks after my departure, he told the guys that Mike had to die. He even asked Joe to find a hitman."
Friends of Elvis report that his rage was more than betrayal.
A source close to the King revealed: "Elvis loved karate but was terrible at it, and he couldn't handle that Mike was both accomplished and closer to Priscilla. He used to rant that Stone made him feel less of a man. He even suggested Mike would be a better lover because of his karate skills, and that drove him mad with jealousy."
Another of his former associates chimed in: "Elvis said Mike had to go. It wasn't just about Priscilla leaving him; it was about being shown up. Elvis hated looking weak. In his mind, karate was supposed to be his thing, but Mike outshined him in every way."
Priscilla, whom Elvis married in 1967 after meeting her in Germany as a teenager, explained how she learned about the singer's adulteries.
She wrote: "I finally held written proof of what I'd always feared," referring to stacks of fan letters she found addressed to Elvis. When confronted, she said he denied the affairs, insisting the women were lying.
Her closeness with Stone, she revealed, grew as her marriage to Elvis unraveled. According to RadarOnline, Esposito even warned her not to bring their daughter Lisa Marie to Las Vegas during this turbulent time.
"Elvis had felt emasculated," Priscilla remembered in her book. "He'd needed to prove to himself and to me that he could make love 'like a real man,' the way he imagined a karate master doing it."
Eventually, she said, Elvis's father and inner circle talked him out of it.
"Joe warned me to be careful. Seeing me might set Elvis off," Priscilla went on. "Over time, and with a lot of persuasion from his father and the guys, Elvis gradually calmed down and gave up the idea of killing Mike, thank God."
The pair broke up in 1973. Elvis Presley died in 1977 at age 42, leaving behind a musical legacy — and strife.
Priscilla Talks About The King's Murder Plot
In her new memoir, Priscilla says she had an affair with her karate instructor during her marriage to Elvis Presley and that the singer briefly contemplated having the instructor killed.
In "Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis Presley," copies of which were obtained by Fox News Digital and released Sept. 23, Priscilla Presley recounts discovering handwritten letters that she said proved Elvis had been involved with other women. She wrote that she began taking karate lessons — initially to impress Elvis — and later developed a close relationship with instructor Mike Stone that became an affair.
"When I turned the key in the mailbox, however, what poured out wasn't bills or junk mail. The mailbox was stuffed full of letters from girls," she wrote. "I finally held written proof of what I'd always feared. I was deeply hurt, but I was also furious."
Priscilla Presley said the revelation of her relationship with Stone enraged Elvis, who she said told members of his inner circle that Stone "had to die" and asked his longtime road manager, Joe Esposito, to find a hit man. She wrote that Esposito warned her to be careful and advised against bringing her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, to see Elvis in Las Vegas because doing so might "set Elvis off."
"Over time, and with a lot of persuasion from his father and the guys, Elvis gradually calmed down and gave up the idea of killing Mike, thank God," she wrote.
Priscilla Presley said the affair and the confrontation that followed were not the primary reasons she sought a divorce. She wrote that although Elvis "forced" himself on her after learning about the affair, the encounter was not the deciding factor in her 1972 decision to end the marriage; she described the interaction as forceful but not "forcibly" and said she left because she needed to see what the world was like.
In an interview with People, tied to the memoir, Priscilla Presley has addressed longstanding rumors about Elvis, including conspiracy theories that he is still alive. "There's been so much that's untruthful out there — things like Elvis is still alive and hidden somewhere. I wish he was still alive," she told People.
"Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis Presley" will be available Sept. 23. Janelle Ash of Fox News Digital is credited with obtaining an advance copy of the memoir.
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