Lisa Marie Presley’s death shocked the world — and fans are still struggling to accept that she’s gone.
The only child of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley passed away at just 54 on January 12, 2023, after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Now, jaw-dropping new details are emerging about her “unbearable” final moments… and a bombshell lawsuit is pulling back the curtain on what really happened in the hours leading up to her death.
Her heart was restarted
Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Elvis Presley, had a voice that mirrored her father’s and a stage presence that carried his signature pout. Fans often wondered why her music didn’t reach the same mainstream heights as Elvis’s — but her life was too often marked by tragedy.
Tragically, she passed away at just 54 on January 12, 2023. Lisa Marie suffered a cardiac arrest at her Calabasas home, and although her heart was restarted en route to West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles, she ultimately died surrounded by family.
The official cause of death was a “sequelae of small bowel obstruction,” a complication from weight loss surgery she underwent in 2020. Authorities ruled her death “natural” with “no evidence of injury or foul play” and confirmed there was no opioid overdose.
Her mother, Priscilla Presley, announced the devastating news, describing Lisa Marie as “the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”
But now, shocking new details about Lisa Marie’s final moments have surfaced amid a legal firestorm. Former business partners Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko filed a $50 million lawsuit alleging that Priscilla prematurely “pulled the plug” on her daughter’s life support to gain control over Lisa Marie’s trust and the iconic Graceland estate.
The lawsuit claims that Priscilla’s actions neutralized Lisa Marie’s plan to remove her as a trustee. According to the complaint, Priscilla allegedly appeared at the house a week after her daughter’s death and reportedly said: “I’m the queen. I’m in charge of Graceland.”
”These fabricated claims..”
Priscilla, through attorneys Wayne Harman and Marty Singer, has called the claims “shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless.”
Singer added: “Accusing a grieving mother of contributing to her daughter’s death is not savvy advocacy; it is malicious character assassination, and should be broadly condemned. These fabricated claims have absolutely no validity and we are confident this case will be dismissed.”
Adding to the drama, alleged excerpts from Priscilla’s yet-to-be-released memoir, Softly As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, describe her frantic rush to the hospital when a “code blue” went off. She writes:
”The next thing I remember is the doctor talking to me. He asked me what I wanted him to do. They had restarted Lisa’s heart, but there was no guarantee it would keep beating. I asked the doctor, ‘What kind of life will she have if we keep her on that machine?’ He looked at me with compassion and shook his head. ‘No quality of life at all.’”
In the book, set to release at the end of September, Priscilla goes on to reflect on the heartbreaking reality of her daughter’s condition:
”I thought about my girl, my wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life. ‘Take her off the machine, Doctor,’ I said,” she recalls, voice “barely above a whisper,” before collapsing. “It was unbearable. I began to sob. I don’t remember falling. After that, everything went dark. … I don’t want to remember.”
The legal battle between Priscilla and her former business partners has only intensified, with her lawyers hitting back:
”Priscilla did not have anything to do with the assassination of JFK, she did not cover up Area 51, she did not fake the moon landing, and she is not secretly keeping Bigfoot locked in a cabin in Canada. Take off the aluminum foil hat and face reality.”
They further allege that Kruse waged a “relentless and calculated campaign of elder abuse and fraud in order to take control of Ms. Presley’s finances for her own benefit.”
