Tom Jones: ‘Elvis Should Have Had Himself Arrested’ Over Drugs

Tom Jones blames Elvis Presley's hellish descent into drugs for The King's sudden death!

Elvis' fellow music legend credits his own longevity for avoiding the substance abuse that took The King's life — with Tom recalling: "We talked about drugs. He said, 'What do you do?' I said, 'I don't bother with drugs.' And he said, 'Well, what do you do to keep sane?' And I said, 'That's how I keep sane. I don't bother with them!"

According to Tom — seen here with Elvis and Priscilla Presley — the "Hound Dog" singer used "uppers and downers, and he smoked a lot of pot. He used to drink small bottles of water. He would then pop off and come back again, and something would have happened."

"He was getting drunk without drink," Tom continued. "He really was a basic guy, and he loved music. It was just a shame that the drugs caught up with him."

Tom added that he once warned Elvis that even alcohol could mean the end of a showbiz career. "The thing about the occasional drink is that you can consume it and not show it," said Tom. "Whereas with drugs, perfectly normal people are reduced to blithering idiots within an hour. Elvis should have had himself arrested!"

However, Tom noted, Elvis never pressured his good friend to go down the same path: "Any time he ever did anything, he would go into another room. He respected me enough not to do it around me."

Instead, Tom would go on to thrive while the world mourned his longtime friend's death on August 16, 1977. "We were close," Jones says. "I was in Hawaii at one time, and we spent time there at his home...Priscilla told me that when I was there, he was more natural — which I liked very much."