Lisa Marie Presley died at the age of 54. Almost 30 years earlier, Elvis Presley’s daughter inherited around 100 million dollars, but not much of that has remained.
Elvis Presley died in 1977 at the age of 42. His sole heir was his only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. But her father was not good with money and squandered almost everything on spontaneous trips and purchases. The inheritance at that time is said to have amounted to only around 5 million dollars. But when Elvis died, his then nine-year-old daughter had no access to the money.
For the next several years, until Lisa Marie Presley turned 25, her mother, Priscilla Presley, managed the estate with tremendous business acumen. The ex-wife of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll managed to increase her fortune to a whopping 100 million in the decade and a half. She came up with the lucrative idea of opening the singer’s estate, Graceland, to fans and tourists. To this day you can enter Elvis’ house, marvel at his idol’s unique pieces in a museum and much more. Even a live cam shows the residential building around the clock.
Lisa Marie Presley’s adviser sold 85 percent of her shares in the company
In 1993 Lisa Marie Presley was allowed to manage the inherited assets herself and hired the consultant and managing director Barry Siegel. This decision was to prove disastrous. In 2005, Siegel sold 85 percent of Presley’s interest in Elvis Presley Enterprises — including Lisa Marie’s rights to her father’s name and likeness.
Elvis’ daughter was left with only $40 million and that would continue to decimate. Between 2005 and 2015, almost the entire fortune is said to have been used up. It is said that it was down to $14,000 when she fired Siegel in 2015. In 2018, Lisa Marie Presley sued Barry Siegel, accusing him of mismanaging her finances. The businessman is also said to have not properly paid taxes for Presley. By then, $16 million in debt had accumulated. According to the documents, from 2012 to 2017, Presley owed the state more than $10 million in back taxes and was burdened with more than $6 million in debt on her home in the United Kingdom.
There was also always trouble privately, which played into the singer’s financial affairs. She had left four marriages behind. Her last husband (2006-2016) and father of her now 14-year-old twin daughters, Michael Lockwood, owed her $40,000 a month in child support and $263,000 a year for his own support. Despite the former couple even having a prenuptial agreement, they kept fighting over money in court, not least because the couple’s twin daughters lived with Lockwood. But also because of current issues such as Lockwood’s demand to receive financial shares in the Elvis biopic. Lockwood insisted that Lisa Marie Presley had more money than she admitted in court.
Bad investments, credit card debt and much more
To this day, it’s not entirely clear how Lisa Marie Presley’s fortune vanished into thin air. At the time, Siegel spoke in court of horrendous expenses, credit card debt, stays in rehab and bad investments, such as those in the company behind “American Idol”, Core Entertainment, which went bankrupt after a few years. Incidentally, Barry Siegel billed the heiress nearly $5 million for about seven years to manage the American Idol business. This equates to an annual income of around $700,000. The court also said, “Had Siegel disclosed to Presley the true financial position of the trust and limited expenses to the trust’s ‘income’ rather than its principal assets, Presley would have been comfortably living on an after-tax annual budget of between $1.5 million and $2 million be able.” Presley is said to have been unaware of her financial situation and Siegel is said to have kept it covered up.
When Lisa Marie Presley died of heart problems on January 12, 2023, there was an ongoing court case with her ex-husband Lockwood. He had taken Elvis Presley’s daughter to court again in 2021 and claimed that Presley had often not paid maintenance, the case was still open at the time of her death. Lisa Marie Presley is survived by 33-year-old daughter Riley Keough and 14-year-old twin daughters Finley Aaron Love and Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood, who are now trying to figure out what their mother’s legacy looks like and what Presley’s true financial standing was. The three daughters will probably inherit the Graceland property.
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Source: Stern
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