Elvis Presley's ex-fiancee Ginger Alden recounts moment she found The King unresponsive in Graceland as foreclosure is paused
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: After weeks of uncertainty, Elvis Presley’s beloved residence ‘Graceland’ is finally saved from foreclosure. Now, the King of Rock and Roll’s beauty pageant fiancée is reflecting on the moment when she found Elvis’s lifeless body in the mansion.
Before his shocking death on August 16, 1977, aged 42, the ‘Jailhouse Rock’ singer was in a relationship with Ginger Alden for nine months. The 67-year-old actress has revealed that just a few hours before The King died at Graceland, they had even set their wedding dates.
Regardless, the iconic mansion has always played a major role in their relationship after first meeting the ‘Burning Love’ artist in his home.
Elvis Presley’s fiancée Ginger Alden recalls The King’s last moments
Recently, in an interview with Daily Mail, Alden shared that she was just 20 years old when the rock icon’s sudden death shocked the world. Recalling the tragedy, Alden shared, “He couldn't have been saved.”
The model and actress found Elvis unresponsive on the bathroom floor of Graceland after the rockstar battled years of serious health issues.
Alden shared, “He couldn't have been saved. Even though I knew at the time what I was seeing, you still think there is some hope. Everyone was just in shock on that day and no, there was nothing more we could have done.”
The ‘Lady Grey’ actress went on to share the details of the incident in her 2015 memoir to stop lies and “misrepresentations” regarding Elvis’ death.
She described in her book, “His arms lay on the ground, close to his sides, palms facing upward. It was clear from the moment he landed on the floor, that Elvis hadn't moved.”
“I gently turned his face toward me. A hint of air expelled from his nose. The tip of his tongue was clenched between his teeth and his face was blotchy. I gently raised one eyelid. His eye was staring straight ahead and blood red,” she continued.
In her interview with the outlet, Alden shared, “I thought, I have to describe this and relive that before lies become the truth. It's not pleasant. It's something I felt the public needed to know because boy, I have never seen anything like it, what surrounded his death.”
She continued, “There were so many different stories and lies that were told. It was tough to sit back and watch.”
Elvis’s death not only shook her but also stayed with her for a long time. She reminisced, “I would wake at night and I would look at the time and do different things for a while. I had a lot of strange dreams off and on for I don't know how much time.”
She shared in the interview that she often dreamt about the legend in her dreams, saying, “He was alive in the dreams and it was always sad. You would wake up and it was traumatic.”
She explained, “It's never pleasant talking about someone's death that you loved dearly so I try not to. I don't dwell on it. I dwell on his life. I had a dream about him not long ago.”
“He was in it and it's strange when you have those because you wake up and he is there for a few minutes, you feel that it's OK now,” shared Alden.
Ginger Alden recounted the moment she met Elvis Presley
In the same interview, the ‘Capitol’ actress also recounted the moment she first met the King. She met Elvis when he asked to meet the newly minted Miss Tennessee (Alden’s sister Terry).
Alden shared that as her sister went to meet Elvis in his Graceland residence, she took her and their other sister along.
She recalled waiting in Lisa Marie’s bedroom, sharing, “We waited a couple of hours then Elvis just came walking in dressed in a blue karate top and black pants. He looked so casual.”
“As shy as I was, I said hi to him because he was gorgeous. My sisters were beautiful so I don't know why he focused on me,” continued Alden.
The model added, “That evening we were sitting down and he looked down then looked back up and said: 'Ginger, you are burning a hole right through me'.”
However, she recalled, “I thought he meant I was staring at him and that embarrassed me, but one thing led to another. I ended up staying the night and sitting in his bed as he was reading a book.”
“He had books on Eastern philosophy and he was very keen on that. He was a total gentleman, he always was, and that is something I always appreciated,” continued Alden before adding, “Falling in love with him was fairly quick.”
She continued, “I was shy, I was scared about some things. It's hard to explain to the average person but Elvis had this powerhouse personality and it was like taking over. It came to the point where I couldn't picture him not in my life. It was so overwhelming.”
“I didn't notice the age gap until he was teaching things, and he liked to teach,” added Alden, before adding, “Whether it was the philosophy or whatever. There was a fatherly side to him and he was super protective of me.”
Alden shared that Elvis invited her to his Las Vegas shows in December 1976 where he proposed to her.
She recalled, “He invited me to see him performing 12 nights and that would be his last Las Vegas engagement,” and noted, “It was there he started saying things like, 'When I close my eyes I can see you in a long, white gown'. I was like, what?”
“I was deeply in love with him. It was all-consuming and I had never had that before,” shared Alden and explained, “The fatherly aspects, the teacher, everything about him. I loved watching him sing and perform.”
The lovebirds also allegedly set a wedding date, as she shared, “We had set a wedding date in the early morning hours right before he passed away.”
“Elvis wanted to announce our engagement in Memphis. He wanted to have more children. I was looking forward to that, I really was and he was too,” claimed Elvis’s last love.
Alden’s candid interview came at a moment when Graceland was finally saved from a foreclosure bid.
After the passing of Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie, his granddaughter Riley Keough became the sole trustee of the property.
However, she was soon handed over with a foreclosure bid by an organization titled Naussany Investments, which claimed Lisa Marie took a loan of $3.8 million by keeping Graceland as security.
They claimed that since the actress died aged 54 in January 2023, without paying off the loan, they were entitled to sell the property.
Keough fought back as she filed a lawsuit in Shelby County Chancery Court claiming two of her mother’s signatures were allegedly forged, and called the company a “fraud entity”.
While the house was scheduled to go into auction on Thursday, May 23, earlier this week the court paused the foreclosure bid.
