Michael Jackson Was a ‘Virgin Until 35’ According to Ex-Wife Lisa Marie Presley

Despite being the King of Pop and having millions of fans swooning over him, Michael Jackson apparently wasn’t as experienced in love as many might have thought.

Though he famously sang about wanting to “rock with” a special someone at the age of 21, according to his late ex-wife, Lisa Marie Presley, it would be another 14 years before he actually did.

For those needing a refresher, Jackson married Lisa Marie, the daughter of Elvis Presley, in a whirlwind romance in 1994, just months after they began dating. Before that, Presley had been married to Danny Keough, with whom she shared two children, Riley and Benjamin. Jackson would later marry Debbie Rowe, the mother of his children Paris and Prince.

Now, in Presley’s posthumous memoir titled From Here To The Great Unknown, released by her daughter Riley Keough, the details of her relationship with the pop icon are revealed. Presley passed away in January 2023, and Riley completed the memoir using recordings her mother had made before her death.

Keough shared with PEOPLE that her mother had wanted to give readers a deeper, more personal look into her life: “Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over, and dissected. What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headlines and reveal the core of who she was.”

In the book, Presley shares that Jackson confessed his love for her during a trip to Las Vegas while she was still married to Keough. After Jackson declared his feelings, Presley eventually split from her husband and began her relationship with the King of Pop. She was 25, and Jackson was 35.

According to Presley, Jackson then revealed that he “was still a virgin.” She added, “I think he had kissed Tatum O’Neal and had a thing with Brooke Shields, but it hadn’t gone beyond a kiss. He said Madonna had tried to hook up with him once, too, but nothing happened. I was terrified because I didn’t want to make the wrong move.”

Despite their connection, the marriage didn’t last. The couple divorced in 1996, after two years together. Jackson passed away in 2009 at age 50 from cardiac arrest, and Presley died at 54 in 2023 from complications following a bariatric surgery.