On April 13, a hearing is scheduled for an ongoing legal battle between warring members of a grieving, famous family.
Priscilla Presley, legendary rock star Elvis Presley’s ex-wife and mother to his only child, Lisa Marie Presley, moved to challenge the validity of her daughter’s will in January.
Mother and daughter had a contentious relationship, but still, Priscilla’s timing was shocking: Her attorneys filed the petition mere weeks after Lisa Marie died suddenly at the age of 54, after going into cardiac arrest on January 12.
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Lisa Marie’s final, troubling public appearance took place at the 2023 Golden Globes, which she attended in support of the Baz Luhrmann epic Elvis. She appeared unsteady on her feet in interviews, and clutched the arm of Jerry Schilling, Elvis’s longtime manager, on the red carpet for support.
Reached to discuss the trust dispute on Friday, Michael Golland, Schilling’s attorney, told The Daily Beast: “I have not spoken to Jerry about this matter.”
At stake within Lisa Marie’s contested estate is nothing more or less than the Presley fortune, reported to be worth as much as hundreds of millions of dollars.
Her estate assets include 15 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises, Graceland, which is estimated to earn around $10 million annually, and the Graceland Archives, according to CNN.
Presley still owed millions to the IRS when she died, but she also reportedly took out two large life insurance policies shortly before her death, which could mean even more money is at stake.
The beneficiaries of Lisa Marie’s estate are her surviving children, Daisy Jones & the Six star Riley Keough—whose trusteeship Priscilla Presley is now contesting—and 14-year-old twin girls Harper and Finley. Benjamin Keough, her only son and Elvis’s lookalike grandson, committed suicide in 2020 at the age of 27. The Daily Beast reached out to Keough for comment.
When Elvis, a lavish spender, died in 1977 he left behind an estate worth $5 million and plagued by extensive debts. Priscilla Presley played a crucial role in the rehabilitation and longevity of the Elvis myth when she transformed his mansion, Graceland, into a lucrative tourist destination. Her decision to open Graceland to the public kicked off a complete reversal of the family’s financial fortunes, which were, at the time, bleak.
Priscilla Presley also met Elvis when she was only 14 years old—the present age of 2 of her granddaughters, whose financial futures she’s now fighting for in court—moved in with him at 17, and is, of course, the mother of his only child. She played a central role in his life.
But Priscilla Presley’s sole, rickety connection to the fortune she helped build was as trustee to her daughter’s estate, before her daughter severed that connection seven years ago.
To understand why Priscilla has been so thoroughly shut out, one must look back nearly 50 years. Long before Lisa Marie and Priscilla ever butted heads over Scientology, Elvis Presley left Priscilla Presley, by then his ex-wife, out of his will. When Elvis died in 1977, his last wishes were clear: The only beneficiaries of his estate were to be his father, his grandmother, and his daughter.
In the present day, “what’s also happening in the background is that when Lisa Marie died, she had two children who are minors with Michael Lockwood,” celebrity attorney and analyst Christopher Melcher told The Daily Beast. “Her estate now has a continuing child support obligation to Lockwood, so Michael Lockwood can ask that the child support increase based on all this life insurance money.”
“If Priscilla is in charge of the estate, she can agree with Michael Lockwood on the amount of child support, and that would ensure her access to the grandchildren,” Melcher added. “If Michael Lockwood doesn’t get the support that he wants, then he might withhold access from Priscilla. Their interests are aligned, in a way, and it could be detrimental to Riley.”
“It’s a difficult thing that could be navigated if they weren’t all fighting with each other, and Priscilla has no place in the dispute,” Melcher said. “She was cut out by Elvis, then cut out by Lisa Marie.”
Melcher told The Daily Beast that Priscilla Presley’s petition against Lisa Marie’s will’s validity will likely begin to be unpacked at the hearing on the 13th.
Presley’s claim that the will is invalid hinges on errors allegedly present in a 2016 amendment Lisa Marie made to the document. The amendment in question? The one Lisa Marie implemented to remove her mother and former business manager as trustees.
Presley’s petition claims that the amendment “misspells her mother’s name,” and includes a signature, supposedly produced by Lisa Marie, that’s “inconsistent with her usual and customary signature.”
“The misspelling was on the typed form,” Melcher said. “It wasn’t as if Lisa Marie were handwriting her mom’s name or her own name and misspelled it, which would be very strange. Some lawyer wrote this. That was a lawyer mistake. So they’re trying to capitalize on a drafting error with that one.”
The last time Priscilla and Riley appeared in public together was at the Memphis premiere for Luhrmann’s film in June of last year. They were pictured smiling on either side of Lisa Marie, who stood between them in front of a giant Elvis logo. Now, more than nine months later, the King’s only daughter is gone and they are poised to face each other in court.
