Lisa Marie Presley claimed that her marriage to Michael Jackson was her 'attempt to save him' in an unearthed interview from 2003.

The daughter of Elvis said that she was 'sucked in' by Jackson's 'poor me' persona and took it upon herself to try and turn his life around.

Lisa Marie revealed that Jackson was first in touch with her when she was a teenager but at the time she was in a relationship with Danny Keough, who would go on to be her first husband.

She claimed that she had no interest in Jackson at the time but years later a mutual friend put them back in touch.

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Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, Lisa Marie said: "He was very real with me off the bat.

"He immediately went into this whole explanation of what he knew people thought of him and what the truth was."

Lisa Marie said that Jackson’s explanation had been persuasive: “You get sucked into the, ‘You poor, misunderstood person, you…’ I'm a sucker for that.”

She went on to say that after her first conversation with him, her perception had changed as he was funny and full of swear words.

The different persona in public seemed to work for Jackson, with Lisa Marie saying: "I think it worked for him to manipulate that image for a little while.

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“The hyperbaric chamber thing and all that monkey s*** and the elephant s***. It made him mysterious, and I think he thought that was cool. But then it backfired, like it always does.”

The allegations of child abuse were to be made soon afterwards but Lisa Marie said that he was convincing in saying that it was an 'extortion attempt' and not something that had any base in fact.

She continued: "I believed him, because he was so convincing. I don't know... I just believed everything he said, for some reason.”

Lisa Marie said that Jackson only allowed a few people to see the 'real him' and that he struggled to keep up the persona.

She continued: “But when you do… He didn't get where he is because he's an idiot. You see a real person who's very much the opposite of what he was presenting.”

She married Jackson in 1994, amid the allegations by Jordan Chandler about sexual abuse, which was settled out of court with Jackson flexing his financial muscle.

Lisa Marie began to think that she would be the one to help him through this. She recalled: "I got into this whole, ‘I’m going to save you' thing.

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"I thought all that stuff he was doing - philanthropy and the children thing and all this stuff - was awesome, and maybe we could save the world together.”

She then added: “OK. Hello. I was delusionary. I got some romantic idea in my head that I could save him and we could save the world.”

Lisa Marie split from Jackson in 1996, citing irreconcilable differences in their divorce but she claims that there was nothing that she saw that suggested he had been abusing children.

She said: "Otherwise I would have been the first one out there going, ‘You motherf*****, I’ve got children. But I never saw anything like that.”

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