Elvis Presley was one of the biggest celebrities in history.
He lived a life that Hollywood would not have been able to dream up.
And a former Elvis Presley bodyguard revealed something shocking about Miami Vice.
Elvis Presley hired a champion kickboxer as a bodyguard
Kickboxing champion Ted Pryor trained with boxing greats Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard.
He was training law enforcement in Florida, the FBI, and the DEA in self-defense when he got a call that changed his life.
Elvis Presley wanted to hire him as one of his bodyguards.
“Elvis, when he was younger in the service, he learned a little bit of martial arts, and he was infatuated with it,” Pryor told Fox News Digital.
Pryor was going out on the road with Elvis on the final tour of his career before his tragic death.
“Unfortunately, no one knew it then, but he was broke,” Pryor said. “He had to start touring, because his manager gambled his money away.”
One of his duties was helping to protect Presley from overzealous female fans trying to come on stage.
“The women used to rush the stage,” Pryor recalled. “It was interesting, because you’d have a chokehold around their waist. We would take them to the floor slowly and our junior bodyguards would take them away.”
A female fan tried to choke Pryor with a scarf that Elvis had thrown into the crowd.
“She was trying to get to Elvis,” Pryor stated. “She put it around my neck and started choking me.”
He received a shocking phone call that Elvis had passed away after the tour.
“I think the whole world was shocked when that happened,” Pryor said. “He always treated me and Joe [his friend and fellow bodyguard] really well.”
Kickboxer discovers the real-life Miami Vice
Pryor was working as a corrections officer in Florida when he got an unusual offer.
Someone wanted to pay him $5,000 to drive a car across Alligator Alley, a stretch of highway that runs from Naples through the Everglades to Fort Lauderdale.
“I wasn’t totally naive,” Pryor said. “I knew there was something in the car.”
Pryor began living the real-life Miami Vice as a drug mule who drove marijuana.
Eventually, he was hired by a drug dealer to serve as his bodyguard and “intimidator.”
“I had a reputation,” he said. “I was one of the best fighters in the world. I was on the cover of magazines. I was really well-known in Florida. He wanted someone that could protect him that didn’t need a gun.”
Pryor got out of the drug mule business and worked as a full-time bodyguard.
“Ray wouldn’t ever let me get into the business,” Pryor recalled. “He wanted me clean. Not that he was a loving, caring guy. He wanted to have someone clean in his life.”
He realized that he needed to change his life after getting arrested for smuggling marijuana.
Pryor used his savings after he got out of jail to start a car wash and a chain of preschools, Children of America, that his sons still run today.
The former kickboxer turned his life story into the book Three-Time World Champ: The Death-Defying True Story of a Kickboxer Turned Drug Smuggler . . . Turned Business Icon.
“It’s been my life, and I’ve enjoyed it,” Pryor stated.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
