Priscilla Presley challenges ‘validity’ of daughter Lisa Marie’s will
Priscilla Presley has filed a legal challenge over the “validity and authenticity” of an amendment made to her daughter Lisa Marie’s will.
In a court filing, Elvis Presley’s ex-wife disputes an amendment to Lisa Marie’s living trust that would see Priscilla replaced as an overseer of her daughter’s estate.
A living trust is a form of estate planning that allows a person to control their assets while alive, but have them distributed if they die, and can serve the function of a will if a separate will is not filed.
Lisa Marie, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla, died on 12 January aged 54. She has been laid to rest at her father’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.
Priscilla Presley’s lawyers argue that there were “many issues surrounding the authenticity and validity” of the amendment to the will.
They are said to include a misspelling of Priscilla’s name in a document allegedly signed by her daughter and the failure to notify her of the change.
Another issue was a signature by Lisa Marie that was “inconsistent with her usual and customary signature”, lawyers said.
The court filing in Los Angeles noted that Priscilla Presley and former business manager Barry Siegel had been placed in charge of the living trust in 1993 and reaffirmed in 2010.
It also said that Priscilla Presley discovered a document existed pertaining to be an amendment to the trust dated 11 March 2016.
It said the “purported” amendment replaced her and Mr Siegel as both current and successor trustees, naming Lisa Marie’s children Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough “as successor co-trustees of the trust” upon their mother’s death.
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The filing states that Mr Siegel had already intended to resign from his position, which would have left Priscilla Presley and Ms Keough as co-trustees.
Benjamin Keough took his own life in 2020 aged 27. His sister Riley, 33, is an actress.
Lisa Marie was nine years old when her father Elvis died in August 1977 aged 42.
