A settlement has been reached in a family dispute over the will of the late Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of musical great Elvis Presley, attorneys told a Los Angeles judge on Tuesday.
The settlement, the terms of which have not been disclosed, is subject to court approval.
The agreement resolves a dispute raised by Priscilla Presley who challenged the validity of an amendment to the will of Lisa Marie Presley, her late daughter.
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“Everyone is happy,” Ronson J. Shamoun, Priscilla Presley’s attorney, said after the hearing. Shamoun, who also represents Lisa Marie Presley’s trust (known as the Promenade Trust), described the family as “united”.
LA County Superior Court Judge Lynn H. Scaduto has set August 4 as the date for the next hearing in the case.
Representatives for Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter, Riley Keough, were present at the hearing. Lawyers for her other children appeared from a distance.
The deal ends uncertainty over who will control the late Lisa Marie Presley’s will, Graceland mansion inheritance and many of the king of rock ‘n’ roll’s personal assets.
In 1993, Lisa Marie Presley had appointed her mother and then business manager Barry Siegel as co-trustees of her trust. However, after Lisa Marie Presley died on January 12 in Los Angeles, her mother said she discovered an amendment to her will, dated March 11, 2016, which replaced them both as trustees upon her death.
Priscilla Presley in January asked the court to determine the validity of the amendment. In her filing, she said the amendment stipulated that she and Siegel would be replaced by Lisa Marie’s eldest children, Riley Keough, 33, and Benjamin Keough – who died in 2020 at 27.
However, Priscilla Presley questioned the authenticity of Lisa Marie Presley’s signature on the document, noting that the document had misspelled Priscilla Presley’s name and that the amendment was never delivered to her during her daughter’s lifetime. “as required by the express terms of the trust”.
Furthermore, the document has never been attested or notarized. According to her filing, Priscilla Presley thought Siegel would step down as co-administrator, lining up Riley Keough as co-administrator alongside her.
Lisa Marie Presley is survived by her three daughters, actor Riley Keough and twins Harper and Finley Lockwood, from two different ex-husbands.
When he died, she owned Elvis’ iconic Memphis, Tennessee, Graceland mansion and retained ownership of her father’s suits, cars, awards and other belongings, according to the mansion’s website. Presley, 54, had helped oversee his late father’s estate before he died earlier in January after suffering cardiac arrest.
Despite legal wrangling, Priscilla Presley denied any family breakdown in a February statement.
Siegel and Lisa Marie Presley fought in court in 2018, after Presley sued Siegel for alleged financial mismanagement and claimed to have more than $16 million in debt that year. Siegel then counterattacked, accusing Presley of wasting his inheritance and owing him money.