Elvis may have been The King, but that doesn't mean he didn't have some petty rivalries, many of them stemming from his deep personal sense of competition with other famous entertainers. Some of these grudges developed while Elvis was still a young performer, being challenged by the likes of Frank Sinatra and the rest of the old guard. Other enmity developed for people like John Lennon while Elvis was in a slow decline, no longer the innovative force of nature he'd been in his youth. Whatever the case, Elvis' resentment for these men was deeply felt, though he managed to get over it in at least one case – at least on the surface. Here are the celebrities Elvis couldn't stand.
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00:00Though Elvis Presley was known to be devoted to those he loved, he also had a short temper
00:05and had little patience for those he didn't like. Here are some celebrities Elvis couldn't
00:09stand.
00:11The careers of Elvis Presley and John Lennon took similar trajectories in that both were
00:14two of among the very biggest names in music, and in popular culture as a whole, at roughly
00:19the same time. Further, both men were big while the Vietnam War was going on.
00:23To say that the war was divisive is an understatement. Attitudes about the war extended beyond the
00:27well-publicized public demonstrations and the entire genre of music that protested
00:31the war. Public figures were quick to line up on either side of the debate as well. Celebrities
00:36like Jane Fonda and Muhammad Ali publicly opposed the war, while others like John Wayne
00:40supported it.
00:41Lennon was steadfastly opposed to the war in Vietnam and made no secret about it. Presley,
00:45however, supported the war, according to the Express, and was a big fan of then-President
00:49Lyndon Johnson, whom Lennon hated for going all-in on the war.
00:53Honey, I just seem to keep my own personal views about that to myself."
00:57When the two men finally met in 1965, their conflicting attitudes about the Vietnam War
01:02quickly came to the surface. No sooner had the Beatles entered Elvis' home than the tension
01:06between the two became apparent, according to author Chris Hutchins. Hutchins arranged
01:10the meeting and later wrote about it in the book Elvis & Lennon, The Untold Story of Their
01:14Deadly Feud. He told the Daily Mail,
01:16"[Elvis' dislike of the pacifist Beatle was born from the night I took the Fab Four to
01:20his house for the first and last meeting. Why? Well, according to The Beatles press
01:24officer Tony Barrow, things started off on the wrong foot."
01:28Barrow told The Guardian,
01:29"[John asked what had happened to the old rock-and-roll Elvis, who at that point was
01:32mainly singing his soundtracks to his films. He was half-joking, but he meant it.]
01:37The tension was eventually eased by an old-fashioned jam session, but the hard feelings apparently
01:41lingered. Barrow told The Guardian,
01:43"[John said it had been about as exciting as meeting Engelbert Humperdinck.]
01:47As for the other Beatles, they weren't exactly blown away, either."
01:50I don't remember. I spent most of the party trying to suss out from his gang if anybody
01:54had any refer.
01:56Elvis wasn't prepared to just stew about John Lennon, the Beatles' anti-Vietnam War stance,
02:00and the personal slight Elvis had suffered in his own home. He wanted Lennon gone. As
02:04in, out of the USA. What's more, he actually went to none other than the President of the
02:08United States to get action. That's because Presley wasn't the only person keen to have
02:12Lennon silenced.
02:13The U.S. government wasn't exactly thrilled with Lennon's anti-war sentiments, either.
02:18So when Elvis met with President Richard Nixon on December 21, 1970, he found a receptive
02:22audience when he tried to convince the POTUS to find a way to get rid of Lennon and the
02:26Beatles. According to the official White House meeting notes from the President's personal
02:29file,
02:30"[Presley indicated that the Beatles had been a real force for anti-American spirit. He
02:34said that the Beatles came to this country, made their money, and then returned to England
02:38where they promoted an anti-American theme. The President nodded in agreement."
02:42And Elvis wasn't done lobbying for Lennon's removal. In 1971, during a tour of the FBI
02:48offices, the King met with then-director J. Edgar Hoover. According to government records,
02:52he expressed,
02:53"[The opinion that the Beatles laid the groundwork for many of the problems we are having with
02:57young people by their filthy, unkempt appearances and suggestive music."
03:01Elvis got his wish, as the FBI did indeed go after Lennon, spending years attempting
03:05to get him deported in order to ensure he didn't damage right-wing political goals through
03:09his activism.
03:11On the surface, Elvis and crooner Robert Goulet couldn't have been more different. The former
03:14was a boundary-pushing, controversial rock-and-roll pioneer, the latter an inoffensive, ballad-singing
03:19performer whose presence wouldn't be unexpected on The Lawrence Welk Show. Legend has it that
03:24the short-tempered Elvis had little patience for seeing Goulet on TV, and once shot one
03:28of his television sets when he saw the crooner perform. But while it's apparently true that
03:32Elvis did shoot a TV while Goulet was performing, the rumors of a supposed beef between them
03:36may have been overblown. According to author Lisa Rogers, Goulet would later call Presley
03:40a, quote, personal friend. And as for shooting a TV whenever Goulet was on? Presley reportedly
03:46did that to scores of TVs, and it had less to do with Goulet himself and more to do with
03:50the king's short fuse and his jealousy of all other performers. He was also known to
03:54fire at the TV when other popular singers such as Mel Tormé or Frank Sinatra appeared
03:58as well. In fact, according to the Vintage News, Elvis' handlers kept scores of spare
04:02TVs around in case their boss happened to shoot one. That's kind of screwy.
04:08By the middle 1950s, rock and roll was becoming a thing, with pioneers like Elvis, Bill Haley,
04:12and Chuck Berry bringing a new form of music to the masses and teenagers eating it up.
04:17This presented something of a problem for old guard musicians like Bing Crosby, Perry
04:21Como, and the like. Careers were threatened, and concerns were raised about what effect
04:25the new form of music was having on the morality of America's youth. And Frank Sinatra, for
04:29his part, basically called rock and roll garbage. According to the Express, in 1957, he said
04:34of rock and roll,
04:35"...it fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. It
04:39smells phony and false. It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous
04:43goons."
04:45Elvis wasn't about to brook being called a cretinous goon by old blue eyes. In a press
04:49conference, Elvis responded by saying,
04:50"...he has a right to his opinion, but I can't see him knocking it for no good reason. I
04:54admire him as a performer and an actor, but I think he's badly mistaken about this. If
04:58I remember correctly, he was also part of a trend. I don't see how he can call the youth
05:02of today immoral and delinquent."
05:05The two seemed to have buried the hatchet eventually, at least professionally. In 1960,
05:09after Elvis completed his time in the U.S. Army, Sinatra hosted a TV special called Welcome
05:13Home Elvis. No word whether anyone shot the TV.