Priscilla Presley says she was gutted as Lisa Marie sold most of inheritance, including Graceland

Priscilla Presley says she was gutted when her daughter Lisa Marie Presley made a life-changing decision amid what she describes as a personal and financial crisis. In Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, the 80-year-old matriarch recalls the moment in August 2005 when Lisa Marie sold almost 85 percent of her inheritance, including Graceland.

Lisa Marie, Elvis Presley’s only child, had inherited from her father in 1993. By 2005, Priscilla writes that Lisa Marie was broke, and she was not confident that the financial guidance Lisa Marie had received was sound. Addressing the issue with her daughter was described as very delicate, the memoir notes, underscoring the strain that financial pressures can place on family dynamics. The sale meant Lisa Marie relinquished control of Elvis’ legacy—the source of a long-running income stream tied to Elvis Presley Enterprises—while keeping the house, its grounds, and the King of Rock ’n’ Roll’s personal effects.

The decision, made amid what Priscilla characterizes as a broader personal and financial crisis, deeply affected her. The move was not only a financial shift but an emotional blow: Graceland, the site she had worked to curate as a living homage to Elvis, represented an emotional home she had spent years developing with Lisa Marie. The two had collaborated on expanding public access to Elvis’s story, including plans for an annex on the property and exhibits of Elvis’s personal items. The sale halted that collaborative trajectory and altered how the Presley legacy would be managed going forward.

Priscilla’s account also aligns with what happened after Lisa Marie’s death in January 2023, at age 54. Ownership of Graceland was placed in a living trust and passed to Lisa Marie’s daughters—Riley Keough and the twins Harper and Finley Lockwood—ensuring the property would remain in the family, even as the personal and business dimensions of Elvis’s legacy continued to evolve. Lisa Marie retained the house, the grounds, and the King’s personal effects, but ceded control of the broader Elvis brand and enterprise. The development was described by Priscilla as devastating and heart-wrenching, a reminder that the way a family handles wealth and heritage can outlast even the most public of personas.

Graceland remains a cultural anchor in American pop culture, drawing fans from around the world to its Memphis streets. The living legacy of Elvis continues to be navigated by the Presley family within the modern frameworks of branding, touring, licensing, and museum operations, even as the family reassesses how to present Elvis’s story to new generations.

Priscilla’s memoir adds another layer to the ongoing conversation about managing fame, wealth, and memory. In reflecting on decades of public attention and private family dynamics, she offers a portrait of a matriarch confronting a turn in the Presley saga that began long before Lisa Marie’s passing and will likely continue to shape how Graceland and Elvis’s legacy are perceived in the years ahead.