Elvis Presley’s girlfriend saved him from drowning at Graceland

After Elvis Presley split up with his wife, Priscilla Presley, in 1972, he started a long-running relationship with the young beauty queen Linda Thompson.

The pair met when she was just 22-years-old, and things got serious very quickly. She moved into Graceland with him, and they became inseparable. But it couldn’t last forever.

Linda, who turns 73-years-old today on May 23, 2023, previously explained how Elvis’ drug habit left him risking his own life while hanging out at Graceland every day.

The King of Rock and Roll used a constant supply of prescription drugs to get him through each day. From pain pills to sleeping pills, Elvis was consuming a massive amount of medication each day; and this is something coroners later believed is what led to his death at just 42-years-old.

Linda recalled Elvis once took a sleeping pill and almost drowned because its effects took over extremely quickly.

READ MORE: Elvis Presley had heartbreaking final words for girlfriend before his death

Linda told the Daily Mail: “Once he fell asleep after taking a sleeping tablet and went head first into a bowl of chicken soup.”

Thankfully, Linda was quick to jump into action and prevent him from drowning in his lunch: “I pulled him out as he would have choked to death.”

This was not the only instance of Elvis’ life being put at peril due to his recklessness. However, she confessed she would never reveal the worst stories – presumably in an attempt to keep his legacy intact.

“There were other occasions,” she admitted. “But I’ll take them to my grave.”

Linda loved Elvis, but she couldn’t handle the infidelity he kept demonstrating during their time together.

“I struggled to accept the other women as I was faithful,” she confessed. “But I was so addicted to loving him that I lost myself and what I wanted while he was addicted to drugs — they were his true mistress.”

Eventually, things got too much for Linda. “I was exhausted caring for him,” she said. “It was like looking after a newborn baby.”

Linda confessed she was scared he would “die on her watch”.

“When I asked him to reduce his medication, he’d say: ‘Don’t worry about me, honey, I’m going to live till I’m 85.'”

Elvis and Linda broke up in November, 1976. Nine months later he was found dead in his Graceland bathroom, aged 42-years-old, by his next girlfriend, Ginger Alden.