Priscilla Presley’s former business partners accused her of withdrawing her daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s life-saving medication to get control of family name, a bombshell lawsuit alleges.
The 80-year-old former wife of Elvis Presley “ultimately wanted to control” her daughter’s trust and Graceland, according to the suit, obtained by The Independent. Priscilla Presley’s lawyer labeled the complaint as “malicious character assassination.”
Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko, the heads of Priscilla Presley Partners, are suing her for breach of contract and fraud; they’re seeking at least $50 million.
Lisa Marie Presley was hospitalized in 2023 after suffering a cardiac arrest. She died in January 2023 at the age of 54.
Her mother was aware that she was preparing to remove her as the sole head of her trust and “pulled the plug within hours of Lisa being admitted” to the hospital, the suit alleges.
“Priscilla knew that Lisa’s death neutralized the threat of Lisa’s efforts to have Priscilla removed as the sole trustee of Lisa’s irrevocable life insurance trust, and Priscilla ultimately wanted to control the Promenade Trust and Graceland,” the filing says. “At her house the following week, Priscilla exclaimed, ‘I’m the queen. I’m in charge of Graceland.’”
Marty Singer, Presley’s lawyer, slammed the lawsuit as “meritless” in a statement.
“This is, without a doubt, one of the most shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless lawsuits I have seen in my practice. This is nothing more than a sad and vicious attempt to falsely tarnish the reputation of an eighty year old woman in blatant retaliation for bringing a lawsuit to redress the wrongful conduct of Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, and their co-conspirators.”
“Accusing a grieving mother of contributing to her daughter’s death is not savvy advocacy; it is malicious character assassination, and should be broadly condemned. These fabricated claims have absolutely no validity and we are confident this case will be dismissed,” Singer continued.
Priscilla and Elvis divorced in 1973. The lawsuit claims that the divorce agreement states “she was supposed to stop using the surname ‘Presley’” and was not mentioned in the late singer’s will.
When Lisa Marie came into her inheritance in 1993, Elvis’ estate was valued at around $100 million, the filing says.
Lisa Marie was the sole heir to her father’s Memphis estate. Following her death, Priscilla filed a petition challenging a 2016 amendment to the trust, which had removed her as a trustee and instead listed two of Lisa Marie’s children — Riley Keough, an actress, and Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020 — as co-trustees, the suit says.
Riley Keough, the star of Daisy Jones and the Six, has acted as sole trustee of the estate since August 2023.
The mother and daughter had a “tumultuous and tenuous” relationship, evidenced by Lisa Marie refusing to walk the red carpet or sit with her mother at the Golden Globes to celebrate the nominations for the 2022 “Elvis” movie, the lawsuit alleges. Around this time, Lisa Marie was “threatening to sue” Priscilla over the trust dispute.
Kruse and Fialko “worked to keep the family together” and, along with Priscilla’s publicist, ensured the pair sat together during the awards show, which occurred just two days after Lisa Marie died, the suit says.
Authorities have not claimed any wrongdoing in Lisa Marie’s death. The LA County medical examiner’s autopsy report determined she had died from complications from surgery.
“The obstruction was in the form of a strangulated small bowel caused by adhesions that developed after bariatric surgery years ago,” the autopsy report said. “This is a known long-term complication of this type of surgery.”
Lisa Marie’s advanced care directive instructions said she wanted her “life to be prolonged as long as possible within the limits of generally accepted health care standards,” but Priscilla didn’t adhere to her wishes, the filing says.
Riley Keough was then made the sole trustee. Priscilla then challenged the amendment that had removed her as trustee in a matter that was later settled.
On behalf of Presley, Kruse and Fialko brokered a deal with Keough that gave the grandmother a $2.4 million payout and “a seven-figure deal for Priscilla’s son, Navarone,” the complaint states.
“The evidence will establish that the real victims here are my clients, who invested millions and years of hard work into revitalizing Priscilla Presley’s brand, only to be betrayed and falsely accused once the money was on the table and every personal and business issue had been resolved,” Jordan Matthews, an attorney for Kruse and Fialko, said in a statement.
This week’s complaint marks the latest in an ongoing legal battle between the former business partners.
In a 2023 lawsuit, Kruse alleged Priscilla abruptly “cut off all communication” after Kruse had helped Priscilla “dig herself out of impending financial ruin,” accused her of breach of contract and other wrongdoing, according to a filing obtained by Billboard.
Last July, Priscilla sued Kruse, Fialko and two other business partners, accusing them of elder abuse and fraud. The group “meticulously planned” a scheme to “to drain her of every last penny she had,” her lawyer alleged at the time.
For years, the future of Graceland has been a point of contention.
The King of Rock ‘n Roll bought the Memphis estate in 1957. More than six decades later, fights over the fate of the estate have ensued.
Nearly one year after the legal battle between Priscilla and her granddaughter had settled, there was an attempted foreclosure auction on the estate.
A public notice for a foreclosure sale of the 13-acre estate in Memphis posted in May 2024 said the trust owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Keough then filed a lawsuit claiming the foreclosure was “fraudulent” and filed a lawsuit to halt it. A judge blocked the efforts to move forward with the foreclosure sale later that month.
In August 2024, federal authorities charged Lisa Jeanine Findley in connection with a scheme to defraud the Presley family.
She falsely claimed that Lisa Marie “had pledged the historic landmark as collateral for a loan that she failed to repay before her death,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri said in a statement at the time. “As part of the brazen scheme, we allege that the defendant created numerous false documents and sought to extort a settlement from the Presley family. Now she is facing federal charges.”
