Priscilla Presley Files to Challenge Lisa Marie Presley Trust Amendment Naming Her Daughter Trustee
Priscilla Presley has filed a legal challenge over a "purported" amendment to her daughter Lisa Marie Presley's trust. NBC News reports that Presley is asking a court to invalidate an amendment to Lisa Marie's trust that names her daughter, Riley Keough, as a co-trustee.
NBC obtained court documents Presley filed in Los Angeles on Thursday (Jan. 26), in which she seeks to maintain control of her daughter's trust. According to those documents, Lisa Marie executed a living trust in 1993 to protect her assets and determine how they would be distributed in the event of her death. The trust was then restated in 2010, naming Priscilla Presley and her former business manager, Barry Siegel, as co-trustees.
According to her filing, Priscilla found a document after Lisa Marie's death dated March 11, 2016, “pertaining to be an amendment” to the trust (quote via the Today Show). That amendment removed both Presley and Siegel as co-trustees, replacing them with Lisa Marie's daughter, Riley Keough, and her son, Benjamin Keough. Benjamin Keough died in 2020, which would make 33-year-old Riley Keough the sole trustee by the terms of the amendment.
Lisa Marie Presley sued Siegel in 2018, accusing him of mismanaging her trust, which was reportedly left with half a million dollars in credit card debt and only $14,000 in cash. He countersued, accusing her of blowing her inheritance with irresponsible spending.
Priscilla Presley's filing claims there are "many issues surrounding the authenticity and validity of the purported 2016 amendment," including misspelling her name. She alleges the amendment was never delivered to her, and her filing further claims that Lisa Marie Presley's signature on the amendment "appears inconsistent with her usual and customary signature." She is asking a judge to declare the amendment invalid, which would leave her as the trustee.
The news comes just over two weeks after Lisa Marie Presley died after suffering cardiac arrest at her California home. A ruling on her cause of death has been deferred pending further tests. She was laid to rest at Graceland in Memphis beside her son, Bejamin, on Jan. 19.
A public memorial took place at Graceland on Jan. 22.
Lisa Marie Presley also had two other children, 14-year-old twins Harper and Finley Lockwood. Her three surviving children will inherit Graceland, the family has confirmed.