by Matteo Persivale
According to Elvis’ widow, the last wills were forged. At her death, Lisa Marie was 16 million in debt, but her inheritance would actually be very rich
Show business is a circus, and the goal is to clean out the wallets of the bums sitting under the big top, happily repeated Colonel Parker, the all-powerful manager who stole a good chunk of Elvis Presley’s fortune. And now that Priscilla Presley, the king’s widow, is contesting her daughter Lisa Marie’s will, which she believes was falsified, it’s hard not to think of that colonel’s verdict that hangs like a curse on Graceland and his descendants . Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla, was not a millionaire at the time of her death on January 12 at the age of 54. Or rather in the negative sense: It was at least $16 million in debt, the latest chapter in an incredible series of wasteful bad investments, at least incompetent if not criminal administration by several generations of managers and administrators (His grandfather Elvis would have been the richest on paper Said to be one of the greatest artists of history, at the time of his death in 1977 he was worth just $5 million ($24 million today, adjusting for inflation).
Yet Lisa Marie’s potentially very rich legacy — even disregarding her father’s music catalog, there’s the copyrights to 24 Elvis films, there’s Graceland, a very tacky and very profitable museum open to the public, and so much more — will go on estimated at around half a billion dollars. Minus Lisa Marie’s debt.
Adding sadness to an already horrible affair is now also the controversial legacy. Just seven days after the funeral, Priscilla has just filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of her daughter’s will. She denies a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s will that she supplanted as trustee. Facts behind the lawsuit: The 2016 document contains a strange misspelling of his mother’s name and Lisa Marie’s signature looks unusual.
In a filing in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for Elvis’ 77-year-old widow said they only learned of the alleged 2016 change after Lisa Marie’s death. The amendment removes (for now?) Priscilla and her advisor Barry Siegel as co-trustees and replaces them with two of their children: model and actress Riley Kough, 33, and Benjamin Keough (who has since committed suicide, aged just 27 in 2020). Year old). Lisa Marie’s attorneys also dispute the failure to report the 2016 change while Lisa Marie was alive, arguing that the change was not authenticated by witnesses. Therefore, based on the foregoing, the alleged 2016 amendment should be deemed invalid and the Trust, as amended and fully restated in 2010, on the contrary, should remain valid as the authoritative document, Priscilla’s attorneys wrote.
Elvis’ estate problems began on the day of his death, August 16, 1977. The will appointed his father, Vernon, as executor. The beneficiaries were Vernon himself, Elvis’ grandmother Minnie Mae Presley and his only daughter Lisa Marie. The will then provided with an opaque clause that Vernon Presley could, at his discretion, give money to other family members if needed. Vernon Presley died in 1979, Minnie Mae Presley died in 1980, and so Lisa Marie, just a child, was the sole heir to it all (Priscilla had divorced Elvis in 1973). It was Elvis’ will that Lisa Marie’s estate be kept for her until her 25th birthday on February 1, 1993.
It’s a shame that part of the music catalog had been sold before that day to settle old debts. However, minus Lisa Marie’s exorbitant expenses, Barry Siegel, the trust’s custodian, was running the business so poorly that he was left with a fortune of just $15,000 at the time of his firing in 2015.
January 31, 2023 (change January 31, 2023 | 21:59)
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