Michael Jackson, First marriage (1994)

In May 1994, Jackson married singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley. They had first met in 1975 during one of Jackson's family engagements at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and were reconnected through a mutual friend in early 1993. They stayed in contact every day over the telephone.

As child molestation accusations became public, Jackson became dependent on Lisa Marie for emotional support; she was concerned about his faltering health and addiction to drugs.[80] Lisa Marie explained, "I believed he didn't do anything wrong and that he was wrongly accused and yes I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it." In a phone call he made to her, she described him as high, incoherent and delusional.Shortly afterwards, she tried to persuade Jackson to settle the allegations out of court and go into rehabilitation to recover—he subsequently did both.

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley on May 26, 1994.

Jackson proposed to Lisa Marie over the telephone towards the fall of 1993, saying, "If I asked you to marry me, would you do it?".Presley and Jackson married in the Dominican Republic in secrecy; the parties denied they had been married for nearly two months. The marriage was, in her words, "a married couple's life ... that was sexually active".At the time, the tabloid media speculated that the wedding was a ploy to prop up Jackson's public image in light of prior sexual abuse allegations.Jackson and Presley divorced less than two years later, remaining friendly.