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If you're an Elvis Presley fan with a social media account, you've probably come across a story about an interaction between The King and young blind fan. In short, this viral anecdote claims that during a concert in 1975, Elvis was informed that there was a blind girl in the crowd. The musician stopped the show to bring the girl up on stage where they had a heartfelt exchange. After the show, Elvis was so moved by the little girl's story that he gave her a $50,000 check and a concert ticket (plus travel expenses) to every one of his future shows. There's no evidence to support this version of events. This is a modern-day work of fiction that is far removed from any firsthand accounts of Presley's interactions with blind fans. A spokesperson for Graceland, the Elvis Presley Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, told us that after checking with the archive team and various long-term staff members, they could provide no record of this happening. The earliest version of the claim that Elvis gave a blind girl a $50,000 during a concert that we could find comes from a Facebook post in November 2016. That post, which makes no mention of a source for this information, starts with a brief introduction and then supposedly reproduces a verbatim conversation Elvis had with this little girl. The post ends with the claim that Elvis gave her a $50,000 check: This version of the Elvis and the blind girl story is an exaggeration of similar story about Elvis and a blind girl that dates back to at least 2012. A 2012 post on iheartelvis.net (which notes that this story has been around for years before they wrote about it) relays a much simpler story behind this photograph. In this version, Elvis simply had a brief conversation with a blind girl before giving her a scarf. This version makes no mention of a $50,000 check. Interestingly, this story from 2012 specifically notes that Elvis kept the microphone away from his mouth so nobody could hear what they were talking about. That version of the story reads: This 2012 anecdote, however, also appears to be an embellishment of the original story. We found a review of Elvis' July 20, 1975 concert and it makes no mention of this incident. The review does state that several young fans lined up to meet Elvis, and that the musician gave them all scarves — something that he regularly did during his concerts, especially during his later years — but it does not mention a blind fan or a $50,000 check. Mary Dissen's wrote in her review of the concert for the Norfolk Ledger-Star: While the viral photographs truly show Elvis handing a scarf to a young fan, we can't verify that this little girl was blind. Furthermore, the claim that Elvis gave this fan a $50,000 check appears to have been conjured out of thin air in 2016, some 40 years after this photo was allegedly taken. While the above-displayed image may not show Elvis and a blind girl, and while the claim that Elvis gave a blind girl $50,000 and a ticket (plus travel expenses) to his future shows is certainly a fabrication, there is at least one grain of truth to this story. In 1957, a blind girl named Judy Wilkinson won a radio contest to attend a concert and meet Elvis Presley. 27 Oct 1957, Sun The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com In 2019, Wilkinson published an article for the California Council of the Blind that recounted her meeting with Elvis in 1957. But Elvis did not give Wilkinson a $50,000 check or tickets to any future shows. Instead, he gave her something that she still remembers to this day: a song. Wilkinson writes that she was nervous to meet her idol and when he asked her about her favorite song she responded: I Want You I Need You I Love You. Elvis, in turn, told her that he'd play that during the concert just for her.
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