Weeks after the death ofLisa Marie Presley, a contentious battle over the star’s will has emerged.
When Lisa Marie, the only child of rock legend Elvis Presley, died on Jan. 12 at age 54, she left her trust — which includesElvis' Graceland propertyand 15 percent ownership of Elvis' estate— to her three daughters.
But on Thursday, attorneys for Lisa Marie’s motherPriscilla Presleyfiled a petition in Los Angeles questioning the “authenticity and validity” of Lisa Marie’s will, claiming that a 2016 amendment that put the trust in the hands of actressRiley Keough, 33, and twins Harper and Finley Lockwood, 14, is invalid.
“Lisa’s intent was very clear,” a friend close to the late star tells PEOPLE of her desire for her children to inherit her trust. “Lisa really didn’t feel that Priscilla was doing anything in her best interest.”
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Lisa Marie Presley.Joe Scarnici/Getty
Among the points of contention between the mother-daughter pair was the fact that Priscilla and Michael Lockwood — who share the same publicist — continued to have a relationship even after he and Lisa Marie divorced in 2016.
Though Lockwood was not invited to Lisa Marie’s funeral, he attended with Priscilla’s help, according to the pal.
“Lisa lived her life authentically… She wouldn’t remain quiet when she was being taken advantage of,” the friend says. “At the end of the day, these are her wishes, and there’s no question as to what her wishes were. No one’s going to be able to reinvent the last seven or eight years and say no, no, no.”
Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley.Bryan Steffy/WireImage
Lisa Marie “had a major issue” with the ways in which her trust was being handled, according to the friend, andeven sued Siegel in 2018, claiming he spent a decade whittling down the $100 million trust she’d inherited after Elvis' death in 1977 to just $14,000 “through his reckless and negligent mismanagement and self-serving ambition.” Siegel, meanwhile, accused Lisa Marie of “squandering” the fortune with her “excessive spending” habits.
“There’s substantial documentation that basically Lisa was the only trustee,” the friend says. “Priscilla did not participate in anything, as [Siegel also] hadn’t for years before… At the end of the day, a trustee is supposed to have limited power — they’re supposed to not be able to do anything bad or stupid. No one can argue that Riley being the trustee is going tonotbe to the benefit of the twins.”
Lisa Marie became a joint heir to Elvis' estate alongside grandfather Vernon Presley and great-grandmother Minnie Mae Hood Presley following his death in 1977. Upon their deaths in 1979 and 1980, respectively, she became the sole heir and also inherited Graceland.
source: people.com
