"A lot of people know about me but they don't know me," the musician said.
Navarone Garcia, Priscilla Presley's son, was recently thrust back into the spotlight when he showed up to the memorial service for his half-sister Lisa Marie Presley on January 22 at Graceland. Lisa Marie, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla, passed very unexpectedly at age 54 from what appeared to be a heart attack. Navarone, 35, shares that even though he spent most of his childhood out of the spotlight, his ancestry weighed over him. "I got in trouble more than everybody else, because kids' parents would find out who my mom was, and they'd want a reason to talk to her," he says. "I wasn't very comfortable with it." This also meant that many people never truly knew him, he shares. "A lot of people know about me," the musician tells PEOPLE, adding, "But they don't know me."
Another gloomy blip amid a lifetime of ups and downs, Navarone says of the death of his half-sister feels "so surreal." After Lisa Marie's passing, Navarone feels that it is now his duty to help Priscilla. Navarone shares he is close to his oldest niece, Riley, despite his mother's suit challenging an amendment to Lisa Marie's will that names Riley, 33, and Benjamin (who died by suicide at age 27) as the only trustees of her estate. "Riley has been so good with the twins," he says, talking about Lisa Marie's 14-year-old twin girls Finley and Harper.
Navarone intends to travel to Brazil with his mother later this year. "She was there in the '80s, but I think she needs a reminder of how nice it is," he says, adding, "I would love to move there someday." Additionally, he hopes to embark on an international tour with his band Them Guns in order to establish himself as a well-known musician. "There were some points where I didn't think I'd make it here," he says. "I'm so proud of how far I've come."
The singer is referring to his addiction troubles. As a teenager, he developed a drug problem after using heroin. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, became his next drug of choice. "I was under the impression I was doing heroin, but then it'd turn out to be fentanyl," he explained, adding, "That was a whole different beast. I became so addicted that I'd need it every 45 minutes."
He quit using opioids and hard drugs in 2020, in part so he could travel to Switzerland to see his future wife Elisa whom he married in 2022. "When COVID happened, I wanted to go there and see her for more than three or four days. I didn't want to have to bring a pound of fentanyl with me anywhere I went," he says. He further added that he "buckled down" and said to himself, "Let's see how bad this can get."
"I was pretty much in my bed in the fetal position all day," says Navarone, who still smokes marijuana and drinks alcohol. "It feels like a different lifetime, almost. The whole world got a lot better [afterward]."
References:
https://people.com/music/priscilla-presley-son-navarone-garibaldi-garcia-breaks-his-silence/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Amanda Edwards
