Alice Cooper’s career is full of bizarre and colorful moments, yet few rival the night he met - and pointed a gun at - Elvis Presley.

The incident took place in 1970, when the shock rocker received an invitation seemingly out of nowhere.

“I got a thing that said, ‘Elvis wants to meet you,’” Cooper recalled decades later on the BBC TV series Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Cooper was one of four people summoned to the King’s hotel room at the Las Vegas Hilton that night. As he recalled, the others were Liza Minnelli, Chubby Checker and porn star Linda Lovelace.

The group rode up in an elevator together and was searched for guns when they arrived on Presley's floor, “which was kind of silly, because there were guns everywhere once you got in,” Cooper noted.

Shortly afterward, the rocker was face to face with the King. “He goes, ‘Hey, man. You’re that cat with the snake, ain’t ya?’" Cooper recalled him asking. "I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘That’s cool, man. I wish I woulda thoughta that.’”

Moments later, Presley beckoned at Cooper to follow him into the kitchen. “He opens the drawer, takes out a loaded .38, snub nose .38, puts it in my hand and he says, ‘I’m gonna show you how to take this gun outta somebody’s hand.”

The surreal experience of holding a loaded gun, pointed at one of the biggest stars in the world, wasn’t lost on Cooper. “The little devil here on my shoulder says, ‘Shoot him,’” the rocker joked. “The little angel over here says, ‘Don’t kill him. Just wound him.’”

Cooper’s inner dialogue didn’t last long: “Before I could decide what to do, I was on the floor. And he had his boot on my throat. And I’m going, ‘Argh! That’s good, Elvis.’”

Despite their strange interaction, Cooper held nothing but admiration for the King. “He was an amazing character," he recalled. "Very funny guy. But he was Elvis.”

 

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