The death of the famous musician and only child of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, 54, shocked the world. Officials reported the cause of death was cardiac arrest. Days after her daughter’s death, Ms. Presley’s mother and ex-wife of the legendary musician Elvis Presley challenged the validity of their only child’s will in a Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Priscilla Presley, 77, filed the legal challenge to her late daughter’s will after learning that Lisa Marie Presley had amended the legal document in 2016. In the 2016 amended will, which was filed legally, Lisa Marie Presley removed her mother Priscilla Presley as the estate trustee. Removing her mother as the trustee means that Priscilla Presley would not have control to oversee and manage her late daughter’s assets.

Instead, the will calls for Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter Riley Keough, a famous actress, and her now late son, Benjamin Keough, plus her underage twin daughters, to take over the assets of her estate. Simultaneously, the amended will removes both Priscilla Presley and the late Ms. Presley’s former business manager, Barry Siegel, as co-trustees. Since Mr. Keough died by suicide in 2020 when he was twenty, Ms. Keough is now the sole trustee.

Contesting wills is common, especially among wealthy families and celebrities.

Yet this court dispute was filed right after Ms. Presley died and opened to the public previously hidden deep family wounds. Family and friends of the deceased Ms. Presley shared numerous tales in articles and on social media of a mother and daughter who were not on speaking terms for many years.

Priscilla Presley’s attorneys allege the will doesn’t spell her name right, and that it had a signature that looked odd. In court documents, Priscilla Presley said she only discovered she was removed as a trustee from the will after her daughter’s death, via what she calls the “purported 2016 amendment’ in the will.

The legal filing claims that the amendment "misspells her mother's name" and bears a signature that is very different from the one used by Lisa Marie, and "appears inconsistent with her usual and customary signature."

The suit also claims that the will requires that any changes made to the will would be delivered to Priscilla Presley, but that she never received them. However, if a will were personally handed over to her, there might not be any proof of this action. In 2016, the mother and daughter were still speaking to one another, so this scenario could be possible.

Experts believe that Priscilla Presley may have a strong case. The suit alleges that the original 2010 amendment to the will is still "the authoritative and controlling document," and is asking the court to find the 2016 amendment invalid. She is claiming that the 2016 document is not notarized nor witnessed.

However, if the publicly shared accounts by family and friends of Lisa Marie Presley, describing a broken relationship between Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley, can be proven in court, then there is a chance the courts can rule against the suit, noting bias.

Priscilla Presley’s suit falls under the California Probate Code and does not allow for jury trials in any trust disputes.

Suing over the famous Elvis Presley inheritance is nothing new in the family.

In 2018, Lisa Marie Presley sued Siegel, claiming that he mishandled her $100 million trust he took control of after the death of Elvis Presley in 1977, reducing it to only $14,000. The lawsuit said that Siegel mismanaged the inheritance "through his reckless and negligent mismanagement and self-serving ambition.”

In 1977, when her father died, Lisa Marie Presley became a joint heir to Elvis Presley’s estate with her grandfather Vernon Presley and great-grandmother Minnie Mae Hood Presley. Vernon Wesley died in 1979 and Minnie Mae Hood Presley passed away in 1980. After the co-heirs died, Lisa Marie Presley inherited Graceland.

On Friday, Priscilla Presley denied that she was estranged from her daughter.

“I loved Elvis very much as he loved me,” she said. “Lisa is a result of our love. For anyone to think anything differently would be a travesty of the family legacy and would be disrespectful of what Elvis left behind in his life.”

Now, the family drama continues as Priscilla Presley attempts to take control of her late daughter’s estate and remove her three grandchildren from the will as trustees. The worth of the estate is unknown.