Inside the Presley household feud over Lisa Marie’s property

The Presley family has gone head-to-head in bitter legal battles since the King of Rock and Roll’s only daughter died last year.

Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, died in January 2023, aged 54, of complications from a weight-loss surgery she had undergone years earlier.

The singer-songwriter had inherited her father’s Graceland estate after his death in 1977. It was later opened to the public as a museum in 1982. 

When she died last year, her daughter Riley Keough, 34, became the sole heir of the iconic 13.8-acre Tennessee property. 

But drama exploded just days after Lisa Marie’s funeral when Priscilla, 78, challenged her daughter’s living will, prompting a legal battle with Riley.

The heated feud did eventually end in a settlement, but Riley is again at risk of losing the home which is to be sold off at a foreclosure auction tomorrow. An injunction hearing is set to take place today.

The feud first became public four days after Lisa Marie’s death when Priscilla filed a petition in Los Angeles questioning the ‘authenticity and validity’ of an amendment to her daughter’s living trust.

Lisa Marie came into a $100million inheritance on January 29, 1993, at the age of 25. The trust was amended and completely restated on January 27, 2010, putting her mother and former business manager Barry Siegel as trustees. 

In 2016, Lisa Marie removed Priscilla and Siegel as trustees. She replaced them with Riley and her son Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide in 2020 aged 27.

But last year Priscilla alleged the amendment was never delivered to her; said the date on the document is suspicious; pointed out the document misspells Priscilla’s name; and said Lisa Marie’s signature ‘appears inconsistent with her usual and customary signature’.

Amid their legal battle, sources claimed that Priscilla was banned from the estate temporarily after Riley ‘changed the locks on the upstairs doors and archives’ on a trip to Memphis. 

But at the time, a spokesperson for Graceland told DailyMail.com: ‘These reports are entirely untrue. No locks at Graceland have been changed since Lisa Marie’s passing.’

Priscilla, just days after the dispute over the will made headlines, urged her fans to ‘ignore the noise’ over the dispute seen in the media and insisted that the situation will be resolved amicably within the family.

She denied reports of a rift, issuing a statement to Page Six that said: ‘I loved Elvis very much as he loved me. Lisa is a result of our love.

‘For anyone to think anything differently would be a travesty of the family legacy and would be disrespectful of what Elvis left behind in his life.’

But in the weeks that followed, sources familiar with the family’s situation claimed that Priscilla had stopped speaking to her granddaughter. 

‘Riley has been mourning the loss of her mother and is heartbroken to have to deal with a trust dispute with a family member,’ the anonymous source told Entertainment Tonight. 

‘Priscilla is adamant that she has a valid case and that she will prevail in court.’

They added: ‘Riley and Priscilla aren’t communicating at this time, but have been in communication through lawyers.’

The source was also claimed that Riley would have preferred to settle the dispute privately and felt distressed over the situation.

‘She is heartbroken that this has turned into a public matter and knows her mother would never want this,’ the source said, noting that Priscilla has remained ‘convinced that [the] old documents had been forged.’

Riley, who had to bury both her mother and brother in a span of three years, has been ‘very stressed’ over the dispute, but is ‘trying to keep a positive attitude’, the source claimed.

Riley and Priscilla ultimately reached a settlement in May 2023. 

‘Priscilla is happy,’ her attorney Ronson Shamoun told DailyMail.com at the time. 

‘The families are happy and unified and together and excited for the future.’ 

Asked if Riley too was happy with the settlement, her attorney Justin Gold told said, ‘She would not have agreed to the settlement if she was not happy with it.’ 

A judge approved the settlement that November.

The approval confirmed that Priscilla would be receiving a $1million lump-sum payment, funded by Lisa Marie’s life insurance policy, as part of the settlement, according to documents obtained by People.

In addition, her son Navarone Garibaldi will be a beneficiary of Lisa Marie’s trust as well. Perhaps most importantly of all, Priscilla will be buried near her ex Elvis at Graceland when she passes away.

However, Riley remains entangled in legal battles over the property, despite the feud with her grandmother having reached a resolution. 

According to a legal notice published this month, Graceland and surrounding land on Elvis Presley Boulevard will be auctioned off for cash to the highest bidder at Shelby County Courthouse tomorrow.

According to the legal notice Lisa Marie allegedly signed a Deed of Trust in 2018 in order to secure a $3.8million loan, using Graceland as collateral.

The alleged loan was taken through a Missouri company called Naussany Investments and Private Lending. Now, the company is claiming Lisa Marie did not pay back the money prior to her death.

Riley who is the current owner of Graceland, is challenging the sale with a lawsuit, claiming it is ‘fraudulent.’ Her lawsuit, filed May 15 in Shelby County Chancery Court, claims that her mother did not borrow money from the company.

‘These documents are fraudulent,’ states the lawsuit.

Keough alleges that her mother’s signatures on the deed are forgeries. The lawsuit also claims that Naussany Investments is not even a real company.

The notary listed on the documents has denied that she notarized Lisa Marie’s signature or ever met her, as per the documents.

A representative for Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises told Dailymail.com in a statement, ‘Elvis Presley Enterprises can confirm that these claims are fraudulent. There is no foreclosure sale. Simply put, the counter lawsuit has been filed to stop the fraud.’

A temporary restraining order on the sale was issued on Monday, as per Riley’s attorney, and an injunction hearing is set for today. 

Riley always supported her mother, including during her drawn out, often nasty divorce and child custody disputes with her fourth husband, musician Michael Lockwood, father of Lisa Marie’s 15-year-old twin daughters, Finley and Harper.

But it was reported that Priscilla and Lisa Marie were ‘barely speaking’ just before the latter’s death after Priscilla sided with Michael, 63, over custody of the twins.

Multiple sources told People that the mother and daughter were not on speaking terms, despite appearing at multiple events together, including the 2022 premiere for the Elvis biopic starring Austin Butler.

‘Riley was always on her mom’s side when it came to Michael (Lockwood),’ one source previously told the magazine. ‘It bothered her that her grandmother and Michael flew to (Lisa Marie’s) funeral together.’

Priscilla also helped Michael get into Lisa Marie’s memorial ceremony at Elvis’s famous home, Graceland, despite her late daughter’s wishes.

‘Michael was not invited,’ a close friend of Lisa Marie told People. ‘He came to Memphis under the pretense that he had to chaperone the twins – and he forced his way in with Priscilla’s help.

‘The last thing Lisa Marie would have wanted was for Michael to be there.’

Lisa Marie filed for divorce from Michael in 2016 after 10 years of marriage. The two spent years fighting about finances and were still negotiating over child support for the twins up until her death.

Michael asked the divorce court in 2018 to order Lisa Marie to pay him $263,000 a year in spousal support so that he could ‘enjoy a lifestyle closer to my marital status of living’ – which included lavish entertaining, expensive vacations and flying on private jets.

And he tried to persuade the judge to tear up a post-nuptial agreement – in which he and Lisa Marie both signed away their rights to the other’s property and spousal support if they divorced.

But Michael ended up on the losing end, not getting a penny from Lisa Marie after openly admitting that he hadn’t read the post-nup and claiming his attorney at the time failed to explain it to him.

The judge upheld the post-nup and threw out Lockwood’s case, telling the court: ‘If Lockwood elected not to read the post-nup and accept the consequences that it would be upheld, that is his choice.’

Before her death, Lisa Marie and her ex were sharing custody of Finley and Harper and she was reportedly paying him $6,000 a month in child support.

But Michael – who is now re-married to hair stylist Stephanie Hobgood – was claiming $40,000 a month, insisting Lisa Marie had much more money than she revealed in court documents and saying his legal battles over the divorce and child custody had cost him more than $1million.

The Presley family also made headlines earlier this year after Priscilla’s son Navarone broke his silence on his ‘unbearable’ fentanyl addiction – which nearly killed him. 

The musician, 36, who’s parents are Priscilla and movie producer Marco Garibaldi, 68, praised his mother for helping him kick the habit.

The famous family have a history of daemons and addiction, with most recently his half sister Lisa Marie found with opioids in her blood at the time of her death.

Navarone revealed he was spending $3K-a-month on Fentenyl – which is 40 times more potent than heroin – after first becoming addicted when he unknowingly took it  laced in other recreational drugs.

He told The Sun: ‘With heroin it would last about six to eight hours, but with fentanyl you have to do it every 45 minutes or else you start to get sick’.

Going on to speak of his recovery he said: ‘My mum helped me, I was indisposed, I was useless. She helped me do everything.’ 

As well as Lisa Marie, who died from the small bowel obstruction caused by previous weight-loss surgery, her son Benjamin took his own life in 2020 after his own battle with addiction.

Meanwhile, Priscilla’s first husband Elvis died in 1977, aged 42, and was found to have 14 different drugs in his system.