Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley: The Unlikely Friendship of Two Kings

Muhammad Ali grew up here in Louisville, a teenager who already talked like a champion long before he was one. Two states away in Tupelo, Mississippi, a poor white kid named Elvis Presley was doing something similar with a guitar.

Neither boy could have known they’d spend the last years of Presley’s life as genuine friends, trading gifts and inside jokes between a boxing ring and a stage. The most famous of those gifts, a bejeweled robe, still hangs here in Louisville today.

A Teenager Who Wanted to Be Elvis

Ali was fifteen when he first saw Elvis Presley on television, and he said the sight changed something in him. He later told his friend Tim Shanahan, author of Running with the Champ, exactly what he saw in Presley.

When I was 15 years old and saw Elvis on TV, I wanted to be Elvis. Other kids in the neighborhood were listening to Ray Charles and James Brown, but I listened to Elvis. I admired him so much and I decided that if I was going to be famous, I’d do it just like him. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to entertain people and be loved by the people and make the girls admire me so much.

Muhammad Ali, recalling his teenage years to biographer Tim Shanahan

Ali meant it literally. When Elvis promised on television that he’d buy his mother a car and a house once he made it, a fourteen-year-old Ali took note.

“I was 14 years old when I heard Elvis say that, and that made me want to do the same thing,” he remembered. “I said, ‘When I get rich and famous I’m going to buy my mother a car and then a house.’ After my first pro fight, I bought my mother a pink Cadillac. And after my second fight I bought my folks a house. Just like Elvis.”

Two Kings Meet in Las Vegas

Ali and Presley didn’t actually meet in person until February 14, 1973, in Las Vegas. Presley had noticed Ali’s flair for dressing like a champion and decided the two of them were, in his word, “originals.” He had his designer build a custom robe, bejeweled and white, cut close to the jumpsuits he wore on stage that year.

That would have been historic. I always wanted Elvis to drive me down Beale Street in a convertible, so his hometown could see that Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley were good friends. Then I’d bring him to Louisville and do the same thing.

Muhammad Ali

The robe was supposed to read “The People’s Champion” on the back. A mix-up with the designer left it reading “The People’s Choice” instead, and Presley was mortified. Ali wore it anyway that same night, walking into the Las Vegas Convention Center for his fight against Joe Bugner. He won.

Presley was closing out his own run of shows in Vegas and invited Ali to ride back to Los Angeles with him afterward, in a gold-plated Cadillac station wagon. Ali had already made plans to fly home here to Louisville, so he turned Presley down. He spent the rest of his life wishing he hadn’t.

Bad Luck and the Norton Fight

Ali wore the robe once more on March 31, 1973, walking into the ring against Ken Norton at the Sports Arena in San Diego. A ringside commentator explained the robe’s story for the television audience: Presley’s gift, worth around three thousand dollars, “Ali’s pride and joy.”

That night Norton broke Ali’s jaw and won a split decision, only the second loss of Ali’s career. Ali decided the robe was bad luck and never wore it in the ring again.

“I don’t want anyone to bother us. I just want peace and quiet,” Elvis said to Ali at one point during their friendship. Ali undoubtedly understood exactly.

People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

Muhammad Ali

A Signed Pair of Gloves

Ali didn’t let Presley outdo him on gifts. He sent back a pair of boxing gloves signed “Elvis, You Are the Greatest. From Muhammad Ali. Peace 1973.” The two stayed close for the rest of Presley’s life, trading calls and the occasional visit.

About two years before he died, Presley showed up at Ali’s training camp in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, asking that word of the visit not get out.

Losing Elvis

Elvis Presley died on August 17, 1977. Ali was one of the people who called Graceland to offer his condolences to Presley’s father, Vernon, and to Priscilla. He rarely spoke about losing friends, but he made an exception for Presley in the years that followed.

The only white boy that had soul, who could sing as good as any of them, was Elvis. I’ll tell the world, Elvis was the greatest of all time.

Muhammad Ali, Elvis Week memorial service, 1985

Elvis Week and the Meditation Garden

In August 1985, a year after his own Parkinson’s diagnosis, Ali agreed to speak at the annual memorial service George Klein organized for Presley in Memphis. He sang a few lines of “Don’t Be Cruel” a cappella for a crowd that had come to grieve. Then he talked about what his friend had meant to him.

That same visit, Ali walked through Graceland’s Meditation Garden, where Presley is buried, and paid his respects at the grave.

The Robe Comes Home

Ali kept the robe for over a decade before donating it to New York’s Hard Rock Cafe in 1988. It has since made its way back here, to the Muhammad Ali Center on Louisville’s riverfront, where it hangs on permanent display.

The same bejeweled robe a rock star gave a boxer in Las Vegas now belongs to one King’s hometown, honoring another.

Muhammad Ali
The full story of Louisville’s own, from the Columbia Gym to the Olympic torch.

King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero
David Remnick’s account of Ali’s rise from Louisville’s boxing gyms to the heavyweight throne.

Louisville Year-Round: Things to Do Beyond Derby Week
Where to see Ali’s robe in person, along with the rest of his hometown legacy.

Sources and further reading