Introduction
Ginger Alden: The Last Person to See Elvis Presley Alive and the Untold Truth Behind His Final Moments
We recently sat down with a woman who knew Elvis Presley intimately—she was once engaged to him and was the last person to see him alive. She has now written a compelling tell-all book that recounts their love story and the King’s final hours.
“The last thing Elvis said to me,” Ginger Alden recalls, “was when I told him not to fall asleep in the bathroom. He replied, ‘I won’t.’ Then he turned, gave me a small wave, walked into the bathroom—and that was the last time I saw him. I found him not long after. It was a devastating day.”
Ginger writes that she discovered Elvis lying on the floor, his legs bent, the upper part of his chest and shoulders touching the ground, and his head slightly turned to the left with his cheek resting on the floor. She gently raised one of his eyelids, and his eye was staring straight ahead.
At the time of his death, Elvis and Ginger were planning their future together. He had given her an engagement ring. She was just 20 years old; Elvis was 42. Though they had only known each other for nine months, she says she was struck by his presence: “When he walked into the room, I always joked that trumpets should have sounded to announce his arrival. He was a gorgeous man.”
Officially, Elvis died of a heart attack—but did drugs play a role? Ginger says she first noticed small “packets” being left for him during their time in Las Vegas. Later, she saw the same thing at Graceland—sleep aids that raised her concern. “I eventually confronted him,” she said. “One night, I saw him fall asleep without them, and I told him, ‘You don’t need those.’ But he answered, ‘You don’t understand. I need it.’”
Ginger also recounts how the medications led to mood swings, and on occasion, violence. In her book, she describes a moment when Elvis suddenly stormed into the room with a wild look in his eyes and struck her with an open hand. “But that wasn’t who Elvis truly was,” she insists. “I was trying to help him.” She also notes that he drank a lot of papaya juice and suffered from fluid retention and bloating—something that made him self-conscious and upset when she mentioned it.
Despite everything, Ginger says she was never afraid of Elvis. However, his love of guns combined with his unpredictable moods could be a volatile mix. She recalls one bizarre incident: “We were reading together, and the toilet started making a strange noise. Elvis got up, left the room, came back with a machine gun—and shot the toilet.”