Lisa Marie Presley Said Mother Priscilla Presley Didn’t Want Her: Memoir

• Lisa Marie Presley wrote in her posthumous memoir that she felt unwanted by her mother, Priscilla Presley.
• Lisa Marie said Priscilla “didn’t have a great maternal instinct.”
• Their relationship was strained after Elvis Presley died in 1977.

Lisa Marie Presley has written in a new posthumous memoir about feeling unwanted by her mother, Priscilla Presley.

Lisa Marie, who died in 2023, wrote about their strained relationship in From Here to the Great Unknown, released Tuesday. The memoirs were co-written by her daughter, Riley Keough.

In her memoir, Lisa Marie said that her mother “considered trying to fall off her horse to induce a miscarriage.”

“She didn’t want to gain weight during pregnancy,” Lisa Marie wrote. “She thought it wouldn’t be a good look for her as Elvis’ wife. There were so many women after him, all beautiful. She wanted his undivided attention.”

Lisa Marie continued: “She was so upset about being pregnant that initially she would only eat apples and eggs and never put on much weight. I was a pain in the ass right away and I always felt he didn’t want me.”

Priscilla and Elvis Presley married in 1967 and welcomed their first and only child together, daughter Lisa Marie, the following year. Priscilla was 22 when she gave birth.

Priscilla went through with the pregnancy, but Lisa Marie said her mother “didn’t have great maternal instincts.”

“That might be what’s wrong with me,” Lisa Marie said.

Priscilla Presley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lisa Marie said that after Elvis died, she felt “bereft” of her mother

Priscilla and Elvis split up when Lisa Marie was 4 years old. In her memoir, Lisa Marie wrote that her parents “did a fantastic job of maintaining a united front and a real bond of friendship” afterward.

“There was still a lot of love between them and they really put on a good front for me,” she said. – I was very lucky.

Lisa Marie said that in retrospect, one thing she was sure of as a child was that she was loved by her father. After Elvis’ death in 1977, when Lisa Marie was 9, Priscilla went to Graceland to be with her – something the child dreaded.

“I heard my mom was coming for me. That was the worst. It felt like an invasion — Graceland was my place with my dad and I didn’t want her there,” Lisa Marie said. “She was going to destroy the whole vibe.”

Lisa Marie added that she felt “stuck” with her mother after Elvis’ death. While Elvis spoiled Lisa, Priscilla was strict with her. Lisa Marie also said that her mother did her best as a parent, especially when she went through a rebellious phase.

“She was trying to figure it out and grow up, too, and I gave her a really hard time,” Lisa Marie said.

Keough writes that Lisa Marie and Priscilla’s relationship improved later in life

Although Priscilla and Lisa Marie weren’t particularly close, Keough said the two put their pasts aside “so Priscilla could be a grandma to us kids.”

Keough said that before Lisa Marie’s marriage to Michael Lockwood in 2006, which lasted 10 years, her mother “re-evaluated” her relationship with Priscilla and they “became closer”. Lisa even wrote the 2005 song “Raven” in honor of Priscila.

“My mother wanted to forgive her,” Keough wrote. “And she wanted to own her part in their difficult relationship.”

Riley said that Lisa and Priscilla were even “thick as thieves for a minute.”

“They were always giggling and laughing and having fun and getting drunk together, constantly up to no good,” Riley said.

After Lisa Marie’s death in January 2023, her family became embroiled in a legal battle over Graceland, the estate she only inherited from Elvis on her 25th birthday in 1993.

Originally, Riley and her half-sisters Harper and Finley Lockwood inherited the estate. A court filing said that in 2016, Lisa Marie removed Priscilla and her former business manager, Barry Siegel, as co-trustees of her living trust. They were replaced by Riley and her brother Benjamin Keough, who committed suicide in 2020. Priscilla then filed a petition questioning the “authenticity and validity” of the trust amendment.

A settlement agreement between Priscilla and Riley was reached later that year. By January 2024, Priscilla and Riley put aside this legal history to attend the Emmys together, where Riley was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie for her role in Daisy Jones & the Six.

Riley also took it upon herself to complete Lisa Marie’s book after she died. According to Page Six, Lisa Marie’s book deal was estimated at between $3 million and $4 million. Since its release earlier this week, From Here to the Great Unknown has become an Amazon bestseller and Oprah Winfrey’s latest selection for her book club.