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Elvis Presley: Why His Long-Time Girlfriend Linda Thompson Says the King Was the ‘Greatest Love Imaginable’

In 2016, Elvis Presley’s longtime girlfriend Linda Thompson wrote a book about her past relationships where she said she shared the “greatest love imaginable” with The King.

Presley and Thompson were a couple from July 1972 to December 1976. Besides his relationship with Priscilla Presley, he dated Thompson longer than anyone else in his lifetime. The couple were together for four and a half years, but broke up about eight months before The King passed away.

In addition to dating Elvis Presley, Thompson went on to marry Bruce (later Caitlyn) Jenner. The couple had two sons together, Brody and Brandon Jenner. After they split up, the songwriter and former beauty queen married her second husband, iconic music producer David Foster.

Thompson has had multiple high-profile romances in her lifetime. But she still points to her relationship with Elvis as the one that stands out. She opened up about The King in her 2016 book titled A Little Thing Called Life: On Loving Elvis Presley, Bruce Jenner, and Songs in Between.

“He was such a remarkable human being and I tried to write the book with kindness and tolerance and understanding,” Thompson said, according to a recent Express.co.uk article.

“I didn’t want to be one of those people that just jumped on the bandwagon and wrote a book and made a profit at his expense and to capitalize on that relationship, I was very guarded about that,” she explained. 

“I wanted to carve out my own position in life,” Thompson added. “Write my own songs, carve out my own career, have my kids and my family and then write about my life and where he fit into it. Which is, of course, the greatest love imaginable.”

Elvis Presley’s Ex-Girlfriend Recalls Heartbreaking Call From Lisa Marie After Her Father’s Death

Although Elvis Presley and Linda Thompson broke up in late 1976, she stayed close to his nine-year-old daughter. Thompson started dating Elvis when Lisa Marie Presley was only four years old, and they shared a close bond.

Thompson became not only Presley’s companion but acted as his nursemaid at times as well. She became an important part of The King and his family’s life. Following his August 16, 1977 passing, Thompson received a heartbreaking phone call from his little girl. Her worst fears had come to pass.

After the couple broke up, she worried that Elvis would not be cared for properly. The legendary singer entered his Graceland bathroom and was left alone for hours that fateful day. His girlfriend at the time, Ginger, fell asleep in the adjacent room while his entourage, the Memphis Mafia, stayed downstairs.

“I said, ‘hello’ and she said, ‘Linda.’ I said, ‘hey’, she said, ‘It’s Lisa.’ I said, ‘I know who this is, you little goobernickel.’ It was a pet name Elvis and I had for her,” Thompson explained, according to another Express.co.uk report. “She said, ‘My daddy’s dead, my daddy’s dead.’”

“I can’t even tell you what I felt, I was stunned and paralyzed. I said, ‘What? No, he’s not,’” Thompson continued. “She said, ‘Yes he is, yes he is. He’s dead.’ The only thing that brought it to reality was when she said, ‘He’s smothered in the carpet.’ And when she said that, I just threw the phone because I thought, ‘Ok, he’s gone. That’s it. Nobody checked on him.’”