Priscilla Presley reveals why Lisa Marie had already lost the will to live before she died at just 54

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Priscilla Presley shared a heartbreaking detail: her daughter, Lisa Marie, had lost her desire to live before her death at 54.

Priscilla explained that Lisa was devastated and felt she couldn’t go on living after her son, Benjamin, tragically took his own life in 2020 at the young age of 27.

Three years after losing her son, Lisa passed away due to complications from a weight-loss surgery she’d had some time before.

In her upcoming memoir, Priscilla, age 80, shares the heartbreaking story of her decision to remove life support from her daughter.

Priscilla Presley has revealed the emotional struggles her daughter, Lisa Marie, faced throughout her life. Lisa Marie was Priscilla’s only child with Elvis Presley.

I read this absolutely heartbreaking thing about Lisa Vanderpump. Apparently, her son Max was *everything* to her, truly the love of her life. And after he tragically took his own life, she just… she desperately wanted to be with him, to be with Ben. It’s just… devastating, according to People magazine, of course. I can’t even imagine the pain.

When Lisa passed away, she was still a mother to her sixteen-year-old twins, Finley and Harper, who she had with her fourth husband, Michael Lockwood.

She and her first husband, Danny Keough, shared two children: actress Riley Keough, 31, and Benjamin Keough.

Priscilla recalled telling Lisa, after Benjamin’s death, that she needed to focus on caring for their twins. Priscilla emphasized that Lisa genuinely made an effort to do so.

She said losing her daughter was the second most heartbreaking moment of her life, after the death of Elvis. It was a long and difficult process to accept that Lisa was no longer with us.

In January 2023, Priscilla made the difficult choice to remove life support from her daughter after she experienced a cardiac arrest at their home in Calabasas, California.

In her forthcoming memoir, *Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis*, Elvis Presley’s former wife is sharing her memories of the difficult time following their divorce.

An early look at the new book reveals Priscilla’s heartbreaking words: ‘I instantly knew, the moment I entered Lisa’s hospital room, that she had passed away.’

It was heartbreaking to watch her. She was on a ventilator, keeping her lungs going, and the monitors still showed a pulse. But it was clear, even to the doctors, that she wasn’t really *there* anymore. The spark, the energy that always defined her, was just…gone. It felt like the person we all knew and loved was already slipping away, even while her body was still being kept alive by the machine.

Riley shared that she felt her mother’s presence leave while still in the air, but we weren’t willing to lose hope.

She was talking about her granddaughter, Riley Keough-a 36-year-old actress who now owns Graceland, the family’s famous estate.

Priscilla described the heartbreaking experience of being with her daughter in the hospital. Doctors explained that her daughter would have no chance of a meaningful life, which led to the incredibly difficult choice to remove her from life support.

She described the experience as overwhelming, saying she started crying and then lost consciousness. She recalled her cousin, Ivy, catching her before everything went black, and admitted she has no memory of what happened after that, nor does she want to remember.

Priscilla Presley’s memoir, “Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis,” will be available next Tuesday, September 23rd.

This news follows a recent, shocking lawsuit alleging that she ordered her daughter, Lisa Marie’s, life support to be removed in order to take control of the Presley family estate.

Oh, it’s just awful, absolutely awful! I’m absolutely furious reading about this. Priscilla is *so* being unfairly attacked! These people, Brigitte and Kevin, are claiming she somehow deliberately cheated them and even *used* Lisa Marie’s passing for their own gain? It’s a $50 million lawsuit, can you believe it?! It’s just… she would *never* do something like that! They’re saying she ‘masterminded’ a scheme, but it’s all lies, I just *know* it. She’s grieving, and now she has to deal with *this*? It’s heartbreaking, honestly. I’m completely on Priscilla’s side, and I hope she fights back and proves these accusations are completely false. It’s just… unthinkable!

A lawsuit filed last Monday alleges that Presley took advantage of Lisa Marie after Elvis’s death, becoming her sole heir. The suit claims he disregarded her daughter’s wishes regarding medical care and swiftly removed Lisa Marie from life support following her cardiac arrest in January 2023, when she was 54 years old.

According to the lawsuit, Presley reportedly wanted to gain control of her daughter’s trust and the Graceland estate. It also claims that Lisa Marie Presley didn’t want to have any contact with her mother before they attended the 2023 Golden Globes to support the Elvis movie – just two days before Lisa Marie passed away.

According to the legal complaint, Priscilla knew Lisa was planning to replace her as the only trustee of Lisa’s life insurance trust and was also threatening legal action.

As a longtime fan, it always warmed my heart to see Elvis and Lisa Marie together, and I recently learned that the team at Priscilla Presley Partners – Kruse and Fialko specifically – really put in the effort to make those moments happen and keep the family united. It’s lovely to know they worked behind the scenes to bring Elvis and Lisa Marie back together, eventually leading to them sharing the red carpet as a family.

People say Lisa Marie Presley had been feeling unwell and told her father, Elvis, about it. He supposedly didn’t pay attention to her concerns and still went with her for drinks at the Chateau Marmont.

The lawsuit claims that Priscilla Presley disregarded her daughter Lisa Marie’s 2010 healthcare instructions, which clearly stated a desire for life-extending care. It alleges that Priscilla made the decision to end life support just hours after Lisa Marie was hospitalized, before her daughter Riley Keough could arrive.

Presley died from a small bowel obstruction caused by previous weight-loss surgery, 

According to the lawsuit, Priscilla believed Lisa’s death ended Lisa’s attempts to have Priscilla removed as the sole trustee of Lisa’s life insurance trust. Ultimately, Priscilla wanted to be in control of both the Promenade Trust and Graceland.

According to court documents, Priscilla stated at her home the week before Lisa Marie Presley’s funeral, “I am the queen. I’m in control of Graceland.”

Two weeks after Lisa Marie Presley passed away, her mother filed a lawsuit contesting the will, which designated Keough as the beneficiary controlling Lisa Marie’s substantial Promenade Trust.

Presley filed a legal challenge regarding a 2016 change to the Promenade Trust. This change removed her and her previous business manager, Barry Siegel, from their positions as trustees and instead appointed her daughter, Keough, and her late brother, Benjamin, as co-trustees.

The matter was settled five months later.

Kruse says she and Fialko worked very hard to secure a $2.4 million settlement for Presley, and a deal worth over a million dollars for Priscilla’s son, Navarone.

They stated they were fired shortly before the agreement was completed and never received payment for the work they did.

Marty Singer, Elvis Presley’s lawyer, released a statement to the Daily Mail calling the lawsuit ‘shameful, ridiculous, and completely without merit,’ adding it was one of the worst he’d encountered in his career.

This is a cruel and unwarranted effort to damage the reputation of an eighty-year-old woman, clearly done in revenge for her decision to sue Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, and those who helped them for their wrongdoing.

Kruse and her associates have gone through four different legal teams in this case, and their current actions appear to be a transparent attempt to gain media attention. This is suggested by the fact that they shared the lawsuit and a related press release with the media *before* officially filing the lawsuit with the court.

Blaming a mother who is mourning her child for contributing to her daughter’s death is cruel and unacceptable, not effective advocacy. These accusations are false and without merit, and we expect the case to be thrown out.

Over a year ago, Priscilla Presley filed a complaint claiming that Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko, along with others, deliberately tried to separate her from the people she trusted and tricked her into signing agreements. Kruse claims these agreements gave them permanent control over Priscilla Presley’s name, image, and likeness, and required her to get their approval before taking any job or pursuing other opportunities.

The court, while ruling against several requests made by Kruse as she tried to avoid consequences for her behavior, stated that if her accuser’s claims were accurate, it would clearly constitute elder abuse.

Having lost several lawsuits in California and Florida, Kruse and her associates are now clearly trying to distract from their losses by aggressively attacking their opponents.

The current approach isn’t going to succeed. It’s clear that Kruse, Fialko, and their lawyers are dissatisfied with the judge’s decisions in their case, and they’re attempting to have the case reassigned to a different judge in hopes of a more favorable outcome.

Riley Keough fully supports her grandmother and is appalled by what she sees as another cruel effort by Kruse to harm her grandmother’s reputation.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles also accuses Keya Morgan, Stan Lee’s former manager who was found not guilty of stealing from Lee, of starting the claims that Kruse and Fialko were abusing Presley as an elderly man.

The dispute began in 2023 when businesswoman Kruse sued Presley, claiming she helped manage Presley’s finances and personal life during a difficult time when Presley was facing near bankruptcy and owed almost $700,000 in taxes.

Presley refuted the allegations and filed a lawsuit in July 2024, accusing Kruse, Fialko, Vahe Sislyan, and Lynn Walker Wright of financially exploiting her and stealing more than $1 million. The lawyers representing those accused denied the claims.

According to reports, Presley first contacted Kruse and Fialko in 2022 because she was experiencing significant financial hardship.

According to the lawsuit, Kruse and Fialko helped revamp her finances, reach settlement agreements, and significantly boost her event earnings – from less than $10,000 to up to $50,000 per show.

The plaintiffs allege they created businesses with Presley to capitalize on her name, image, and likeness, and they invested significant amounts of money in products, events, and marketing to rebuild her public image.

The lawsuit claims Presley wrongly stated she owned the rights to her name, image, and likeness (NIL), while actually having secretly sold the rights to the Presley name and Graceland back in 2005 for $6.5 million.

She was accused of not telling Kruse and Fialko about it, and later said she simply forgot about the agreement.

Morgan is alleged to have become friends with Presley, intimidated Kruse, and encouraged Presley to cut off contact with the people suing them by falsely claiming elder abuse.

Morgan reportedly reached out to Presley following the legal agreement, offering to help her regain control of her name, image, and likeness from Elvis Presley Enterprises, the company that handles Elvis Presley’s estate and branding.

According to the lawsuit, after reaching a settlement in 2023, Presley ended her business relationship with Priscilla Presley Partners. She then allegedly interfered with their projects and started profiting from her own name, image, and likeness (NIL) through appearances at events like NBC’s Christmas at Graceland, comic conventions, and promotional events, without sharing any of the earnings.

Ms. Presley is alleged to have misused company funds by withdrawing money from bank accounts without permission, closing those accounts, and redirecting payments meant for others to her own use.

Jordan Matthews, the lawyer representing Kruse and Fialko, told the Daily Mail that their lawsuit reveals the origin of Priscilla’s claim of elder abuse.

Our evidence clearly shows the original idea came from Keya Morgan, now a co-defendant in this case. We believe his actions are akin to a comic book villain, and we intend to prove this lawsuit is about the real-life devastation caused by one woman’s desperation and greed.

He stated that recordings and communications clearly show no evidence of any wrongdoing, such as manipulation, force, or abuse of an elderly person. He confirmed it was simply a proper business agreement with complete documentation.

The evidence will show my clients were the ones harmed. They invested a lot of money and effort into rebuilding Priscilla Presley’s brand, but were then betrayed and wrongly accused after they’d already put in the work and settled all outstanding issues.

We’re claiming that Priscilla began targeting Kruse and Fialko immediately, motivated by severe financial hardship. She was struggling with significant IRS debt and was involved in several lawsuits, including disputes within her own family.

According to the complaint, Priscilla had a broken relationship with her daughter for many years, well before Kruse and Fialko became involved. Kruse and Fialko invested a significant amount of money – seven figures – to revitalize Priscilla’s public image, fix her financial problems, resolve her legal issues, and address personal family difficulties, all while trying to help her reconnect with her daughter. Despite this, Priscilla has responded by publicly spreading false and damaging information about Kruse and Fialko.

The people suing are asking for over $50 million in compensation, including extra money meant to punish the defendant, and a court order to prevent Presley from using their identity for commercial purposes without permission.

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Keya Morgan for comment and has yet to hear back. 

According to documents filed in court in September 2023, Kruse stated that Presley was on the verge of running out of money-only about two months away from financial ruin-when Kruse stepped in to help manage her finances.

Kruse said that she and the actress began a company Priscilla Presley Partners in 2022.

Kruse testified that she invested considerable time and money into projects intended to benefit Priscilla from the publicity surrounding the Sofia Coppola film ‘Priscilla,’ which came out in October 2023.

In 2024, Priscilla Presley’s lawyer, Singer, stated that she stopped working with Kruse after discovering Kruse and a colleague were trying to steal her money and were involved in other improper activities.

In July 2024, Presley filed a lawsuit alleging that Kruse, Fialko, Sislyan, and Walker Wright financially exploited her and forced her into a situation resembling indentured servitude through a carefully constructed and deeply disturbing plan.

Presley first encountered Kruse in 2021 when he was selling Elvis collectibles through an auction.

On August 27, 2021, Kruse shared a photo with Presley on Instagram, promoting a luncheon she was hosting in Beverly Hills, California, on September 4, 2021.

The lawsuit alleges that Kruse led Presley to believe her previous financial advisors were either dishonest or ineffective. Kruse then supposedly tricked Presley into signing agreements and creating companies that gave Kruse and her colleagues 80% of Presley’s earnings, leaving Presley with only 20% of the profits from her own business.

Presley alleges the group gave her only small ownership stakes in businesses they established, which then made money using her public image and identity. The legal action also named Priscilla Presley Partners, LLC, as a defendant.

The lawsuit claims money from the 2023 movie *Priscilla*, featuring Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny, was also taken illegally and accuses Kruse of being a dishonest and compulsive liar.

Presley alleges her former business partners sabotaged a potential agreement that would have given her a stake in a cosmetics company. Instead, she received a $300,000 payment upfront, which she claims they kept for themselves.

The lawsuit alleged that the associates opened new bank accounts for themselves, damaging Presley’s long-standing relationships with her banks. They also added themselves to her existing accounts, moved money between accounts-and into their own personal accounts-and made questionable transactions that benefited them personally.

The lawsuit alleges that Kruse and her colleagues improperly withdrew $40,000 from an account belonging to Navarone Garibaldi, attempted to negotiate deals concerning Lisa Marie Presley’s estate, and falsely billed Presley for moving and storage costs.

Presley filed a lawsuit against Kruse, seeking over $1 million in compensation and requesting that the contracts she signed with Kruse and other parties be cancelled.

Lawyers for Kruse and Fialko stated to the Daily Mail that the lawsuit against them was filed in response to a previous suit brought by Priscilla’s business partners last year.

We believe the truth will come out and ultimately, justice will be served. It’s deeply upsetting to those of us who dedicated our time and effort to help someone in need, only to have them now try to harm the reputations and lives of genuinely good people.

Entrepreneur and Director of Operations for Kruse GWS Auctions, Kruse has a significant online presence with over 356,000 followers on Instagram.

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2025-09-18 20:39