[SIZE=-1]Presley knows that the world has never thought about her in quite the same way since her second marriage, her 1994 union with Michael Jackson. She is infuriated by this and by the notion that she wanted anything else out of it other than those things most people hope for in a marriage. "All I did get out of it was a shit storm," she says. "And I got out of it. Now people go, 'You seem somewhat sane, you seem pretty together -- what the hell was that all about?' It put a stigma on me. A 'What the hell was she thinking?' stigma."
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[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]After that first conversation, they were friends who talked. Then the child-abuse accusations surfaced, and Michael Jackson's world exploded. "That whole shit hit the fan," Presley recalls, "and he was quick to call me and tell me what his side of the story was, so it looked like an extortion situation. I believed him, because he was so convincing." She frowns wryly. "I don't know. . . . I just believed everything he said, for some reason.
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[SIZE=-1]Jackson was under attack, and it brought out Presley's protectiveness. "I got into this whole 'I'm going to save you' thing," she says. "I thought all that stuff he was doing -- philanthropy and the children thing and all this stuff -- was awesome, and maybe we could save the world together." She pauses. "OK. Hello. I was delusionary. I got some romantic idea in my head that I could save him and we could save the world."
[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]At this point she was still married, and they were yet to become girlfriend and boyfriend. "He called me a lot," she says. "Confided in me a lot. Which could be very manipulative -- I don't know. I hung out with him more, and I made the mistake of saying I was not happy in my marriage, and the courting started. And I left [my marriage] probably quicker than I would have, and that was probably one of the bigger mistakes of my whole life."
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[SIZE=-1]Their first surreal public appearance was opening the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, during which -- as they stood center stage -- Jackson kissed her fully on the lips."That was not my idea, by the way," she says. "I was terrified. It was his manager's idea. I thought it was stupid. All of a sudden I became part of a PR machine."
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[SIZE=-1]It seemed like a blatant gimmick to prove -- to start with -- that he was straight.[/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]"Yeah, but again, I wasn't looking at it like that. See, if I had been, that wouldn't have ever happened."
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[SIZE=-1]Even stranger and more astonishing was the interview the married couple gave to Diane Sawyer in 1995, in which Presley steadfastly defended her husband, the genuineness of their relationship and his character. [/SIZE]
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[SIZE=-1]"I don't recognize who I was then, now, watching it," she says. "I was really in this lioness thing with him -- I wanted to protect him. Naive as all hell. I never thought for a moment that someone like him could actually use me for any reason like that. It never crossed my mind, and I don't know why -- I'm sure it crossed everybody else's." [/SIZE]
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