Kim Kardashian called Priscilla Presley before her dad, Robert Kardashian Sr., died in September 2003.
Priscilla, now 80, briefly dated the late Robert after her 1973 divorce from Elvis Presley. Years later, Kim called Priscilla from her father’s hospital room.
“Robert and I had one last conversation before he died,” Priscilla wrote in her book Softy, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, released on Tuesday, September 23. “He was the kindest of men, and I remember him with great affection.”
Robert died at age 59 following a brief battle with esophageal cancer.
Priscilla only dated Robert for “a few months” before realizing that things would never work out between them.
“Robert had a demanding job as an attorney, working long hours five days a week,” she wrote. “By the time the weekend rolled around, all he wanted was a quiet night at home with popcorn and a good movie. It was fine at first, but I gradually grew restless. I am more active by nature.”
At the time, Robert “wanted to get married,” but Priscilla “wasn’t ready to marry again” following her split from Elvis.
Despite their divorce, Elvis was still in Priscilla’s life when she was with Robert.
“He always complicated things. He had an unfortunate habit of phoning late at night when I was with another man,” Priscilla recalled. “One night, Robert was sound asleep in bed with me when the phone rang at 2:00 a.m. Fortunately, he was a sound sleeper, so I leaped out of bed and grabbed the phone before it woke him.”
Priscilla and Elvis discussed the singer’s show that evening before they hung up and she went back to bed.
“It had certainly never occurred to him that I might be with another man. Despite our divorce, he still couldn’t wrap his head around my being with someone else,” Priscilla wrote, noting that her ex-husband would have “gone ballistic” if he knew that Robert was asleep in her bed.
Robert, meanwhile, “never knew Elvis had called.”
Elsewhere in the book, Priscilla admitted to going on a date with another man while feeling “a little bored” in her relationship with Robert. (She wrote that one Scientology auditing session allowed her to see what she had done was wrong.)
“I realized how uncomfortable I was with what I’d done, and I took responsibility. I broke it off with the other man, and then I talked to Robert,” she wrote. “I apologized for what I’d done and told him it wouldn’t happen again. It was painful and awkward, but afterward, I felt so much better about myself.”
