In this file photo, Priscilla Presley (left) and Lisa Marie Presley welcome fans during the 75th birthday celebration for Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee, US, Jan 8, 2010. Photo: Reuters
The gloves are off less than a month after the death of American singer Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley and his former wife Priscilla Presley.
Last Thursday, Priscilla Presley, 77, filed a petition at the Los Angeles Superior challenging her daughter’s will, seeking to invalidate an amendment made in 2016.
According to the petition, Lisa Marie had set up a living trust in 1993 and amended it in 2010, appointing Priscilla and her former business manager Barry Siegel as co-trustees.
A living trust is a legal arrangement which allows a person to decide how his or her assets are managed while he or she is alive and how they are distributed after the person’s death.
Priscilla said in the filing she was unaware of the 2016 revision in the trust until after her daughter’s death.
The purported changes replaced her and Siegel with Lisa Marie’s two oldest children, daughter Riley Keough and son Benjamin, as co-trustees.
Riley, 33, is an actress while Benjamin died of suicide at the age of 27 in 2020. Lisa Marie is also mother to 14-year-old twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood.
Priscilla pointed out that her name had been misspelt in the filing and Lisa Marie’s signature in the amendment appeared to be “inconsistent” with her usual signature. She added that there were also no witnesses or notarisation of the changes.
Priscilla requested the court to invalidate the 2016 amendment, as she said in the filing that the 2010 version is still “the authoritative and controlling document”.
She added that as Siegel “has already or will soon resign”, she and Riley are slated to be the co-trustees, according to prior terms of the trust.
A friend close to Lisa Marie told People magazine that the late star wanted her children to inherit her trust as she “did not have a relationship” with her mother by the time she made the amendment in 2016.
“Lisa’s intent was very clear,” the friend said. “Lisa really didn’t feel that Priscilla was doing anything in her best interest.”
Lisa Marie died on Jan 12 at the age of 54. Her cause of death has not been revealed by the Los Angeles County coroner, who is investigating the case.
She was laid to rest at Graceland on Jan 22 after a memorial in which Priscilla and Riley, among others, paid tribute to her. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
