Everyone knows that Elvis Presley was the "King of Rock and Roll," and he was and still is one of the most iconic celebrities of all time. He had a larger-than-life persona, but it wasn't all blue suede shoes and burning love.
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Related: The Most Haunting Things Priscilla Presley Has Said About Her Relationship With Elvis
There are a lot of things about Elvis that some people don't know about, especially about his family. For some time, his estate was in shambles, although his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, and his daughter, Lisa-Marie Presley, are working to improve it. However, his granddaughter, Riley, is a successful actress.
One thing a lot of people don't know about Elvis is that he had an identical twin, Jesse, who died at birth, and his passing wound up effecting the rock star for much of his life.
Updated on February 18, 2022: Elvis is one of the most famous men to ever walk the planet Earth, and thus, he will always be a topic of gossip and conversation, even though forty-five years have passed since his death. In fact, some fans have gone as far as to theorize that Elvis faked his death, and that he is still very much alive. One of those conspiracy theories even involves Elvis's brother Jesse.
The theory suggests that Jesse did not actually die at birth, and that instead he was kept out of the public eye and used as a body double for Elvis on occasion. These conspiracy theories are, of course, just that – conspiracy theories. While some people are very passionate about these theories, there is no credible reason to believe that Elvis or Jesse is still alive in any place other than fans' memories.
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What Happened To Jesse Presley?
Elvis was not born into the vast wealth that his daughter, Lisa Marie, was later born into. In fact, his parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley were not well off at all when Gladys became pregnant with identical twins.
When Gladys went into labor in the family's two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi, she gave birth to Jesse, a stillborn, first. Then 35 minutes later, she gave birth to Elvis, who was then an only child.
Later, Jesse was buried in a shoebox, because the family couldn't afford a casket, in Priceville Memorial Gardens in Tupelo. It's been reported that his grave was unmarked, but there is a stone where he is buried, just without his name, and it is next to the graves of his great aunt, Susan Presley, and great uncle, Noah Presley.
Elvis Presley's Name Is An Anagram Of 'Lives' And He Might Have Lived With Survivor's Guilt For Most Of His Life
A lot of biographers think that Jesse's death affected Elvis for most of his life, both in a positive and negative way. On one hand, his brother's death could have given Elvis the motivation he needed to become the icon he is today. On the other, some believe that a lot of the struggles he went through stemmed from survivor's guilt.
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Dr. Peter Whitmer, a clinical psychologist, has been researching twins for years, including twins separated by death. He wrote the book, Inner Elvis, which is "a psychological investigation into the life of Elvis Aaron Presley," which reveals the "psychic trauma fueling Elvis's rise to superstardom and his subsequent fall into strange obsessions, behaviors, and addictions."
Related: 15 Little Known Facts About Elvis Presley's Granddaughter, Riley Keough
Whitmer believes that Elvis was deeply affected by his brother's death, saying in his book, "Elvis’s twin’s death at birth was a tragedy that triggered a process that made his dead sibling the bedrock, the singular driving force in his life." He continues to say that Jesse was "a restless spirit who eventually haunted all of Presley’s relationships."
Sometimes a "twinless twin" will feel guilt over their twin's death either because they think they caused their death or because they survived and the twin didn't. Either way, Elvis had to live with it and would, reportedly, visit his brother's grave. His mother once said that he was "living for two people."
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Some also believe that the reason Elvis was shy and lacked self-confidence was that he was lonely and feeling guilt over Jesse.
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Another author, Vernon Chadwick says, "We do know that twins who lose their partner, often suffer many problems and disorders in later life. The subject of Elvis' twin can help us understand both the great power that Elvis had to connect with an audience as if he were reaching out to connect with his absent brother, as well as the emptiness of the so-called 'black hole' which single twins often experience. Relatives and friends of Elvis in Tupelo have stated that Elvis felt guilty about the death of his twin brother, Jesse Garon. It's very likely this guilt played a role in Elvis' later dysfunctional behavior."
According to some, Elvis was even haunted by his brother. The singer apparently would talk to Jesse in his room at night and once heard a disembodied voice that he believed to be Jesse's. Even stranger are the conspiracy theories that Jesse never d*ed and that Elvis used his brother to go on interviews for him.
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Meanwhile, some believe that Jesse's spirit drove Elvis to success, in a kind of guardian angel-type way. Jesse might have spiritually been there for his younger brother, but that doesn't mean that Elvis didn't have a hard time feeling guilt and that "black hole," a lot of twin-less twins feel.
We'll never know exactly how Elvis felt about Jesse's death, or if it affected him at all, but he clearly loved him because he made a grave for him at Graceland. At least now they're together again.
Next: 15 Surprising Facts About Lisa Marie, Elvis Presley's Daughter