EXCLUSIVE: Inside Elvis' Secret Hitman Plan — Real Reason The King Plotted to Have Priscilla Presley's Karate Instructor Lover Taken Down
Elvis Presley is said to have planned to take down his wife Priscilla's lover.
Sept. 29 2025, Published 7:55 p.m. ET
Elvis' petty jealousies and insecurities were at the heart of his alleged plot to use a hitman to kill his estranged wife Priscilla Presley's karate instructor lover Mike Stone, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The King of Rock 'n' Roll's grim plan is revealed in Priscilla's new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, as she writes her affair with Stone, 80, began in the early 1970s, shortly before her marriage to the singer collapsed.
'Mike Had to Die'
Elvis raged with jealousy over Priscilla's affair with karate champ Mike Stone.
She claims Elvis, furious and humiliated by the relationship, asked his longtime road manager Joe Esposito, to arrange a hitman to eliminate Stone. The plan, she says, was ultimately abandoned after family and friends persuaded him to calm down.
"Elvis found the thought of me with another man unbearable," Priscilla writes. "In the weeks after my departure, he told the guys that Mike had to die. He even asked Joe to find a hitman."
Sources close to the Presley circle tell us Elvis' rage was not only about betrayal but his obsession with karate. The singer had taken up martial arts but was never considered skilled.
Outshined By A Karate Master
Elvis fumed that Stone outshined him in karate.
One insider said: "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 former associate recalled: "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."
Betrayal And Heartbreak
Priscilla turned to Stone after discovering Elvis’ infidelities.
Priscilla, who married Elvis in Las Vegas in 1967 after first meeting him in West Germany when she was just 14 and he was 24, describes how she discovered his repeated infidelities before turning to Stone.
She recounts opening their mailbox to find it overflowing with letters from adoring female fans. "I finally held written proof of what I'd always feared," she writes.
When she confronted Elvis, she says he denied everything, claiming the women were lying.
Her closeness to Stone deepened, she explains, after realizing Elvis would never change. But her new relationship sent the iconic rocker spiraling.
According to Priscilla, Esposito even warned her not to bring their daughter Lisa Marie to see her father in Las Vegas during this volatile period.
From Fury To Collapse
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The singer died in 1977, leaving behind a legacy of heartbreak and fury.
"Joe warned me to be careful. Seeing me might set Elvis off," she writes. "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 turmoil also affected their intimacy, with Priscilla claiming Elvis reacted by trying to prove his masculinity. "Elvis had felt emasculated," she writes. "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."
The couple divorced in 1973. Elvis died in 1977 at the age of 42, following a cardiac arrest at Graceland. Lisa Marie died in January 2023, aged 54.
