An amended lawsuit reveals excerpts from Priscilla’s forthcoming memoir
A bitter legal dispute involving Priscilla Presley and her former business advisers has unexpectedly shed light on the heartbreaking final hours of her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. The updated complaint, recently filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contains pages allegedly from Priscilla’s upcoming memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, which hits shelves on September 23.
Memoir Excerpts Detail Lisa Marie’s Final Hours
The court documents include two deeply personal pages that offer an intimate glimpse into the day Lisa Marie died at a San Fernando Valley hospital. She succumbed to complications from a small bowel obstruction—a tragic consequence of previous bariatric surgery. These excerpts paint a devastating picture: Priscilla at her daughter’s bedside, clutching her hand, gently caressing her face, whispering words of love as family members surrounded them in vigil.
The memoir describes how Lisa Marie’s eldest daughter, Riley Keough, was racing to reach the hospital when the dreaded “code blue” alert echoed through the corridors—Lisa Marie’s heart had stopped beating.
Priscilla’s Account of Life Support Decision
Priscilla’s recollection of what happened next is gut-wrenching. She describes the attending physician approaching her after medical staff managed to restart Lisa Marie’s heart. The doctor posed the unthinkable question about what course of action she wanted to pursue, making it clear there were no guarantees the heart would keep beating. According to these memoir pages, the physician informed Priscilla that her daughter showed “little brain activity”—the vibrant, fiery person she knew was essentially gone.
“I thought about my girl, my wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life,” the memoir reveals. Priscilla reportedly whispered to the doctor, “Take her off the machine,” before collapsing in tears and losing consciousness. She characterized the moment as “unbearable” and recalled “everything going dark,” confessing she wishes she could forget those agonizing details.
Legal Disputes and Contradictory Claims
Priscilla’s camp has remained tight-lipped about these memoir excerpts. Her attorneys have consistently dismissed the original $50 million lawsuit from former advisers Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko as “shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless.”
In their latest response, Priscilla’s legal team pushes back against allegations suggesting she pressured Elvis Presley to his death during their divorce. They ridiculed these claims while launching their own counterattack, accusing Kruse of “elder abuse and fraud” in an attempt to seize control of Priscilla’s finances.
On the flip side, Kruse and Fialko insist that Priscilla willingly signed agreements granting her minority stakes in companies leveraging her name and likeness, only to violate these contracts after Lisa Marie’s death. Rolling Stone apparently uncovered video evidence showing Priscilla signing these very contracts with legal counsel by her side.
Background on Lisa Marie’s Death and Estate Battles
Lisa Marie died at 54 on January 12, 2023. Kruse and Fialko’s original complaint accused Priscilla of violating Lisa Marie’s advance health care directive, which explicitly stated her wish to have life prolonged “as long as possible within the limits of generally accepted health care standards.” They alleged Priscilla pulled the plug prematurely, driven by family estrangement and the looming prospect of losing control over a $25 million life insurance trust.
After Lisa Marie’s passing, Priscilla contested a 2016 amendment to the Promenade Trust that stripped her of co-trustee status, replacing her with Riley Keough and the late Benjamin Keough. This trust oversees substantial Presley family assets—Graceland, precious archives, and Lisa Marie’s 15% ownership in Elvis Presley Enterprises.
Recent Settlement and Upcoming Hearings
To avoid a drawn-out legal slugfest, Riley Keough struck a deal with Priscilla. The settlement awarded her a $1 million lump sum from Lisa Marie’s life insurance policy, $50,000 for stepping down as co-trustee, plus a $100,000 annual salary as “special adviser” to the Promenade Trust for the next decade.
The elder abuse lawsuit faces its next hearing next week, while a case management conference for the breach-of-contract suit is slated for February.
