Were These Elvis Presley's Final Words?

The final words of the famous are sometimes poignant or profound. For instance, Winston Churchill reputedly said "I am bored with it all," before his death in 1965. Meanwhile, Bob Marley's final words reflected his long-standing beliefs when he told his son Stephen that "money can't buy life" before his death in 1981. But sometimes the last words of preeminent people are more mundane, even embarrassingly so. On the morning of August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley got out of bed, took a handful of painkillers and other prescription drugs, and then headed to the bathroom, telling his fiancée Ginger Alden he was going to read. 

He was often constipated and spent a lot of time in the bathroom in his final months. "Don't fall asleep," Alden told him. "Okay, I won't," Elvis responded, according to "Elvis and Ginger: Elvis Presley's Fiancée and Last Love Finally Tells Her Story." These are the King's most commonly reported final words as he shuffled off in his gold pajamas to go sit on the black leather seat of his commode. When Alden woke up around 2 p.m., Elvis hadn't returned to bed. Even so, she had a phone conversation with a girlfriend and then her mother before getting up to see where he was. She found him face down on the plush carpet of his bathroom in a kneeling position. He was dead at 42. 

In his final years, Elvis Presley had a dependence on various prescription drugs and an issue with binge eating. He could be unsteady on his feet, passing out at random times from the downers he was taking. Still, on his final day alive, he woke at 4 p.m., played with his young daughter, Lisa Marie, and went to a dental appointment. At 4 a.m. the next morning, he called his cousin, Billy Smith, and asked him to come to Graceland with his wife, Jo, for a game of racquetball.

Elvis then sat down at the piano and played a couple of gospel tunes. Before his death, he had become deeply interested in spirituality, amassing a large collection of books on the subject. David Stanley, Evlis' half-brother, told the Express that two days before the King's death, Elvis told him, "I won't ever see you again – the next time I see you will be in a higher place in a different plane." Stanley came to believe Elvis knew he was about to die. When Ginger Alden found Elvis on the bathroom floor, a book called "A Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus" lay next to him.

The book "Elvis Presley: A Southern Life," alleges that Elvis' fiance, Ginger Alden, wasn't the last person to see the King alive. According to the work, he conversed with someone else before his death, meaning his response to Alden's admonishment not to fall asleep on the toilet wouldn't have been his final words. In the book, it was Delta Mae Biggs, Elvis' aunt, who was the last person to speak to him. She came to the bathroom to drop off another package of prescription drugs to him. Unfortunately, the book doesn't provide any hints as to what the conversation was. Still, most sources cite Elvis' conversation with Alden as his last.

After Alden discovered Elvis on the bathroom floor, he was rushed to Baptist Hospital seven miles away where he was officially declared dead at 3:30 p.m. The medical examiner determined Elvis' cause of death a heart attack. A later report found 14 different drugs in his system including large amounts of codeine, morphine, and Placidyl, among others. The King's final words to his fiance turned out to be untrue. He had fallen asleep on the toilet, or more accurately, he most likely passed out from the drugs, slumped forward off the toilet, and then died.