Priscilla Presley says she was gutted as Lisa Marie sold Graceland inheritance amid crisis
In a new memoir, Priscilla Presley recounts Lisa Marie's 2005 decision to sell about 85% of her inheritance, including Graceland, and the emotional toll on the family.
Priscilla Presley says she was gutted when her daughter Lisa Marie Presley sold almost 85% of her inheritance in August 2005, a move framed in Priscilla’s new memoir as the result of a personal and financial crisis. The inheritance, which Lisa Marie came into in 1993, included Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate and the assets tied to Elvis Presley Enterprises. By 2005, Priscilla writes, Lisa Marie reportedly found herself “broke,” prompting a difficult, private discussion about finances and the future of Elvis’s legacy.
In Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla recounts that she was not confident Lisa Marie had been receiving sound financial advice, and addressing the issue with her was described as “very, very delicate.” The August 2005 sale saw Lisa Marie relinquish control of Elvis’s legacy and nearly all of her inheritance, while she retained the house, the grounds and Elvis’s personal effects. The move, Priscilla notes, deprived the family of a steady income stream from Elvis Presley Enterprises and has been characterized by the author as a difficult financial decision with lasting emotional consequences.
The memoir emphasizes the emotional price of the deal. Priscilla writes that Graceland felt like an “emotional home” she had helped build into a public shrine, and that selling so much of the inheritance felt like severing a central part of the family’s identity. The arrangement also coincided with Priscilla’s efforts to curate Elvis’s legacy alongside Lisa Marie, including the creation of an annex on the property to display Elvis’s personal items for fans. The sale altered not only the family’s finances but the way Graceland was presented to the world, changing the dynamic of how Elvis’s memory would be managed going forward.
Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January 2023 at the age of 54, left Graceland in the care of a living trust for her children: Riley Keough and twins Harper and Finley Lockwood. The transfer meant that while the property and some of Elvis’s legacies remained in the family’s orbit, direct control of Elvis’s business interests shifted away from Lisa Marie. Priscilla has described the succession as devastating and heartbreaking for her, given the long arc of building Graceland as a cultural landmark and a family archive.
The broader Presley saga includes Elvis’s burial at Graceland, along with other family members, and the public’s ongoing fascination with the intertwined histories of music, fame and private life. Elvis and Priscilla were married from 1967 to 1973, a relationship that continued to shape the family’s narrative in the years that followed. Priscilla has continued to reflect publicly on life after Elvis, including her own family dynamics and personal history, as the Presley legacy remains a touchstone for fans and historians.
Images embedded with this report illustrate the era and the ongoing public interest in Graceland and the Presley family: 
