Over 50 years ago, Miss Tennessee model Linda Thompson moved into Graceland with Elvis Presley following his separation and eventual divorce from Priscilla. After four and a half years, Linda had had enough of the celebrity lifestyle and the couple broke up around Christmas 1976, less than a year before the singer died of a heart attack on the toilet at just 42. In the decades since, Linda became a successful lyricist, sometimes channelling her lingering romantic feelings for Elvis into her songs. One of these, a Whitney Houston classic, she co-wrote with ex-husband David Foster.
Penned for the 1992 film The Bodyguard, the Oscar-nominated I Have Nothing included lines about Linda’s love for Elvis like “I never knew love like I’ve known it with you” and “don’t walk away from me, I have nothing, nothing, nothing if I don’t have you.” This has long been a rumour and was addressed by the 75-year-old in a new Instagram post today. She captioned it, “It’s true that living with a diva legend like Elvis helped to inspired these lyrics that I wrote”, before going on to explain.
Linda confessed: “So many people have asked me if the lyrics I wrote for the Whitney Houston classic I HAVE NOTHING were inspired by my years long, romantic relationship living with Elvis Presley. The answer is absolutely yes! Elvis was a world famous diva rockstar, and Whitney‘s character was a world famous diva popstar. When you live with an icon intimately like I did, you get to understand them from their deepest soul outward. And all the emotions I experienced during those years have become my co-writer in many song I have written since…”
