Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley's Relationship Timeline: A Look Back

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage (né Nicolas Kim Coppola) and the late singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley made headlines with their relationship in the early 2000s. After all, there were no wallflowers in this pairing. Cage and Presley did things big, from their splashy commemorative destination wedding to their equally ostentatious divorce 108 days later.

Like many celebrity couples, Cage and Presley were the perfect match — on paper. As the Face/Off star noted in his 2003 interview with Barbara Walters, he and Presley were both from "artistic" families — she, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley; he, the nephew of celebrated auteur Francis Ford Coppola. 

"She was born with the pressure of an extremely famous name from day one; I was a young actor in Hollywood with the name Coppola trying to make it with those pressures," Cage told Walters during a pre-Oscars special. "There was a logic to it; there was a sense to it." 

Of course, the reality of their relationship did not match up to the fantasized idea of it, which led to its end.

Here's a look back at Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley's relationship.

October 2000: Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley first meet

According to People, a 37-year-old Cage and a 33-year-old Presley met in 2000 while the former was still legally married to actress Patricia Arquette and the latter was engaged to singer-songwriter John Oszajca. As Cage later described in his 2003 interview with Walters, he met Presley (unexpectedly, despite rumors that he was an Elvis-obsessive) at the 52nd birthday party of Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone.

"I walk into a party not knowing who I'm going to meet, and there's this beautiful girl standing in the middle of the living room wearing this short leather skirt and this fluffy jacket, and she looks up at me with these big, beautiful, soulful eyes that look like they have a sad story to tell, and I just went 'Oh.' I was thunderstruck," he explained. "We got to talking, we got to know each other, and she's hilarious, and she's a real firecracker, and she tells it like it is." 

Cage emphasized that he "saw Lisa" and not the daughter of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, saying, "There's no answering machine with my voice on it as Elvis. We weren't going to buy Graceland. We were never going to live in Graceland. I wasn't going to build Graceland for her on top of a ranch somewhere.

September 6, 2001: Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley are first spotted together

Cage and Presley threw an afterparty following the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City, reported People. Ramone, the guest of honor, commented that Cage and Presley appeared "happy to be together."

After getting divorced from Arquette and calling off her engagement with Oszajca, Cage and Presley, respectively, went public with their relationship in May. However, even before the pair made things official, they generated headlines.

At one point in their engagement, while enjoying a boat ride, Presley's $65,000 six-carat yellow diamond engagement ring was mysteriously thrown into the ocean during a fight, per ABC News. Divers were hired to recover the gem, but it was never found. Presley reportedly told Playboy that Cage "replaced it two days later with a 10-carat yellow diamond." 

August 10, 2002: Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley get married

Despite having this tendency, as Cage described to Walters, of getting "into this unfortunate pattern of breaking up, getting back together again," the couple took their relationship to the next level in 2002. They tied the knot in a private ceremony at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows resort in Hawaii, according to Entertainment Weekly. The wedding was held during the week of the 25th anniversary of Elvis's death.

November 2002: Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley break up

After less than four months of marriage, Cage filed for divorce. It was finalized in May 2004. 

"I'm sad about this, but we shouldn't have been married in the first place. It was a big mistake," Presley said in a statement issued by her publicist, Paul Bloch, per CNN. 

Initially Cage refused to comment on the predicament, though he later told Walters, "Oftentimes, when you have two people who are very strong and their own personalities and rather intense, sometimes you can have a hard time meshing." That said, he had some regrets about the dissolution of their union.

"It's sad, and I miss her every day," he said in 2003, "and sometimes I wish we couldn't have rushed the marriage, and sometimes I regret rushing the divorce, but it just seemed like it wasn't going to change."

2003: Lisa Marie Presley says her relationship with Nicolas Cage was a "bloody nightmare"

Presley was a tad more straightforward when discussing the split. "The most upsetting thing was when he called to say he was sorry, wish he hadn't done it, things like that," Presley told ABC News about Cage's decision to file for divorce.

"You can't have a temper tantrum and then call me four days later and expect, you know, everything to be fine again … so, it was like that … We were both like two 12-year-olds in a sandbox, basically."

She later revealed to Rolling Stone in 2003, "We're both so dramatic and dynamic that when it was good, it was unbelievably good, and when it was bad, it was just a f—king bloody nightmare for everybody. It was just Mr. Toad's Wild Ride."

2003-2005: Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley "become very good friends" post-divorce

Still, the kindred spirits remained friends following their whirlwind romance and subsequent divorce.

"I adore Nic," Presley said during a 2003 appearance on Larry King Weekend. 

She continued, "We had a connection. We're sort of these gypsy-spirited, you know, tyrannical pirates. And [when] one pirate marries another, they will sink the ship basically is what it comes down to." 

Presley later told Oprah Winfrey of her and Cage's divorce: "That was not a fun time for either of us. He did redeem himself in the end, and we did become very good friends after that. We're better like that."

In 2013, Cage looked back on their time together fondly. 

"That particular relationship was really based on humor," he told The Guardian. "We had a lot of laughs together. So that's what that was. Much was made about it because of her father and whatnot, but we had a simple relationship, in my opinion."

January 12, 2023: Nicolas Cage remembers Lisa Marie Presley after the "devastating news" of her death

Following Presley's death in January 2023, her ex-husband Cage issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "This is devastating news. Lisa had the greatest laugh of anyone I ever met. She lit up every room, and I am heartbroken. I find some solace believing she is reunited with her son Benjamin."

Presley's late son Benjamin Keough died by suicide on July 12, 2020, at 27, according to People. 

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