The “Presley family curse” has made its technique to the fore but once more following the tragic dying of Lisa Marie Presley aged 54.
Lisa Marie – the one little one of Elvis Presley and the only inheritor to his Graceland property – went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital on Friday morning.
Her mom Priscilla Presley, 77, confirmed her dying a couple of hours later.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla confirmed in a press release to People.
“She was the most passionate strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment.”
It’s the newest devastating replace for the Presleys, who’ve been stricken by a string of horrible tragedies over time.
Lisa Marie, who has had 4 kids, was the household determine rocked by the best variety of traumatic setbacks, beginning together with her dad and mom’ divorce when she was simply 5 years outdated, and the 1977 dying of her father, the king of rock n roll.
Lisa Marie discovered Elvis’s physique
Elvis, then 42, checked on a then nine-year-old Lisa Marie in her bed room at his Graceland mansion at 4am on August 16, 1977. He discovered her awake and out of her mattress.
“I was supposed to be asleep, actually. He found me,” Lisa Marie beforehand stated, based on Radar Online.
Helping his solely little one into mattress, Elvis gave her a kiss on the brow.
“That was the last time I saw him alive,” Lisa Marie stated.
The Suspicious Minds singer was set to fly out of Memphis the subsequent night for a tour kicking off in Portland, Oregon. But his lifeless physique was discovered by his then-girlfriend Ginger Alden on the lavatory ground on the afternoon of August 16.
Lisa Marie, who has stated she noticed her father face down on carpet subsequent to the bathroom, recalled calling Elvis’s former girlfriend, Linda Thompson.
“My daddy’s dead! He’s smothered in the carpet!” she recalled saying to Thompson.
Lisa Marie has not often opened up concerning the day her father died. In a 2003 interview with Playboy, the singer stated she “avoids” the subject “in all interviews”.
“It’s not something I like to capitalise on, particularly for people’s amusement,” she stated.
“It’s not that I don’t like talking about him. And, yes, I could set the record straight. It’s just that I’m uncomfortable with divulging anything about him, because people have done that for so long to capitalise on it. I hate those people so much. It’s against my moral code to get attention by discussing him.”
Four failed marriages
Lisa Marie’s first marriage was to Chicago musician Danny Keough, with whom she remained shut even after their break up.
The pair had been married in 1988 and had two kids collectively, daughter Riley, 33, and son Benjamin, who was aged 27 on the time of his dying in 2020.
Just three weeks after her divorce from Keough, Lisa Marie tied the knot with Michael Jackson in 1994, whom she had recognized since she was six.
The King of Pop’s unlikely union with the daughter of Elvis got here as Jackson was going through unprecedented scrutiny about his non-public life — specifically, his string of shut friendships with little boys.
The pair later raised eyebrows for his or her joint interview with journalist Diane Sawyer in June 1995, the place Sawyer was upfront with Jackson about his little one intercourse abuse allegations.
“What is a 36-year-old man doing sleeping with a 12-year-old boy — or a series of them?” she requested Jackson.
“I’ve never invited anyone into my bed — ever. Children love me; they follow me.”
Lisa Marie, who was a singer and launched 4 albums in her life, defended her husband in a press release that garnered controversy, telling Sawyer that she’d seen the youngsters he surrounds himself with.
“They don’t even let him go to the bathroom without running in there with him … when he jumps in the bed, I’m even out. He jumps in there with them,” Presley stated.
The marriage in the end didn’t final – Lisa Marie filed for divorce in early 1996 citing “irreconcilable differences”, and famous in her submitting that that they had really separated in December 1995, shortly after Jackson had been hospitalised after a collapse and the couple had argued.
Despite their break up, the pair maintained in a friendship up till Jackson’s dying in 2009, which Lisa Marie was reportedly “shattered” about.
Following their divorce, Lisa Marie was briefly engaged to musician John Oszajca, however broke off the engagement after assembly US actor Nicholas Cage at a celebration. Lisa Marie and Cage wed in August 2002, earlier than Cage filed for divorce simply three months later.
“I’m sad about this, but we shouldn’t have been married in the first place. It was a big mistake,” Lisa Marie stated in a press release on the time.
Child porn claims towards fourth husband
Lisa Marie’s fourth marriage was to Michael Lockwood, her guitarist, in 2006.
The pair welcomed twin women in 2008 – Harper and Finley – earlier than Lisa Marie filed for divorce in 2016.
As a part of their messy divorce proceedings, Lisa Marie alleged in 2017 that she discovered “hundreds” of kid pornography photos on Lockwood’s private pc. Their daughters had been additionally taken into state custody on the time.
“I was shocked and horrified and sick to my stomach,” Lisa Marie wrote within the papers.
Lockwood vehemently denied the claims, and it seems the case has since been dropped.
Their divorce was finalised in mid-2021, and the duo lastly reached a personal settlement over little one assist in October 2022.
Son’s devastating dying
Lisa Marie’s solely son, Benjamin Keough, took his personal life in July 2020. He was 27.
The coroner discovered Benjamin had alcohol and cocaine in his system. He didn’t depart a notice.
In a primary individual piece she wrote for People final yr, Lisa Marie wrote how she’d been residing in a “horrific reality” following her son’s dying, and shared how she was dealing with the grief.
“Death is part of life whether we like it or not,” Lisa Marie wrote within the emotional essay.
“Grief is incredibly lonely. Despite people coming in the heat of the moment to be there for you right after the loss takes place, they soon disappear and go on with their own lives and they kind of expect for you to do the same, especially after some time has passed.”
She described how she “beat myself up tirelessly and chronically”, and blamed herself “every single day”.
“The unrelenting reality is that you are FORCED into this horrendous ‘club’, if you will, that you never wanted to be in or a part of, and you are FORCED to then, for lack of a better term, have to go and find your new people now.”
Lisa Marie stated she “keeps going for my girls”.
“My and my three daughters’ lives as we knew it were completely detonated and destroyed by his death. We live in this every. Single. Day,” Lisa Marie added.
“I’m saying all this in the hopes that I can help raise awareness on grief and loss.”
Financial turmoil
In 1993, on her twenty fifth birthday, Lisa Marie turned the only inheritor to her father’s property, which was price round $US100 million when she inherited it.
But as a substitute of receiving the fortune, Lisa Marie appointed others to behave as trustees over her inheritance, appointing business supervisor Barry Siegel as a co-trustee in 2003 to be the individual primarily in command of managing the belief belongings in addition to her personal earnings.
In 2018 courtroom paperwork, Lisa Marie alleged that Siegel assured her that her funds had been in “good shape” – nonetheless, claimed he whittled her profitable belief down to simply $US14,000.
In 2019, her mom Priscilla was compelled to promote her Los Angeles mansion to assist out her daughter together with her mounting money owed.
“Priscilla would never have done this if she didn’t believe it was her daughter’s last chance,” a supply informed RadarOnline of the $US5.5 million sale on the time.
Elvis, who was referred to as a beneficiant and free spender whereas he was alive, left behind a cash-poor property on his dying, price about $US5 million, based on Forbes, and with a mountain of debt.
Priscilla managed to bolster that determine considerably after his dying when she assumed administration of the Elvis Presley Estate (EPE), serving to develop its worth to an estimated $US100 million, largely because of Graceland’s success as a vacationer vacation spot.
Despite shedding most of her belief as of 2018, issues seemed to be getting higher for Lisa Marie on the monetary entrance.
Lisa Marie struggled throughout the Covid-19 pandemic when Graceland was compelled to shut for 2 years, nevertheless it was reported that her belief was now making her as much as $US100,000 monthly in earnings, per Lockwood’s little one assist filings final yr.
Lockwood additionally claimed within the submitting Lisa Marie was making a hefty revenue for her involvement in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 Elvis biopic.
