By Stacy Perman, Los Angeles Times
In the summer of 2021, Priscilla Presley seemed to be riding high.
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The ex-wife of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had appeared at Graceland during the annual Elvis Week celebration and later hosted a three-day festival at the famous manse extolling the virtues of elegant Southern living. Then there were the highly anticipated upcoming biopics: director Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” and Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” based on her 1985 memoir, for which she served as an executive producer.
Privately, however, it was a difficult time for the actress. Priscilla was mourning the passing of her mother, just a year after her grandson, Benjamin Keough, the only son of her daughter Lisa Marie Presley, had committed suicide at 27. Adding to her personal woes, Elvis’ former bride was in a serious financial hole, as court filings would later claim.
Then she met Brigitte Kruse, a flamboyant, fifth-generation auctioneer and self-styled philanthropist who specialized in high-profile celebrity memorabilia, royal objects, estates and fine jewelry sales. In 2017, Kruse gained a measure of renown when she sold an abandoned private plane known as the “lost jet” once owned by Elvis for $498,000.
After the pair were introduced, they launched a joint venture that would cash in on Priscilla’s famous name, image and likeness through her paid public appearances and other projects.
Within months of their initial meeting, Priscilla began lending her name to some of Kruse’s online Elvis memorabilia auctions with GWS Auctions Inc., based in Agoura Hills, California.
Less than two years later, their partnership was in tatters, with the two women trading bitter allegations in dueling lawsuits.
Priscilla, 80, called Kruse, who was half her age, a “con-artist and pathological liar” who had forced her into a “form of indentured servitude,” leading her into signing away 80% of her income and conning her out of more than $1 million, according to the fraud and elder abuse lawsuit she filed against Kruse and her business associates in Los Angeles last year.
Kruse, who did not respond to requests for comment, has disputed Priscilla Presley’s claims, depicting herself in court filings as her financial savior who faced retaliation after she sued Priscilla for breach of contract a year earlier.
The litigation is the latest in a string of legal battles that Priscilla and the Presley heirs have been involved in since Elvis died nearly 50 years ago, leaving a financial legacy as messy and fraught as the King’s life.
While the storied Presley family has forever been enshrined in celebrity as America’s reigning pop culture icons, Elvis’ estate has long been the spigot of his heirs’ fortunes and misfortunes, spilling out from the gates of Graceland.
As Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Elvis Presley Enterprises once said about another dispute involving the estate:
“People have been trying to take from Elvis since Elvis was Elvis.”
Inheriting a messy estate
When 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu met Elvis Presley in 1959, he was already Elvis. She was the stepdaughter of an U.S. Air Force officer, living in West Germany where the rocker, then 24, was stationed during his military service.
Rock’ n’ roll superstar Elvis Presley, with his wife Priscilla and their newborn baby Lisa Marie, at the Baptist Hospital at Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.. (Keystone/Getty Images North America/TNS)
Four years later, Priscilla moved to Memphis and stepped inside the gilded cage of Elvis’ fame. In 1967, the couple married in Las Vegas. With the birth of their daughter Lisa Marie nine months later, a rock ‘n’ roll dynasty was born.
But life inside of the irresistible mythology of Elvis proved stifling. He was mostly on tour and in a haze of drugs and affairs. At 28, Priscilla divorced the rocker, but not his stardom.
She built an agile career out of the ashes of their romance. Priscilla went on to become an actress with a recurring role in the 1980s CBS hit series “Dallas,” starred in several of the “Naked Gun” movies and appeared in other television shows; she also authored books and launched a fragrance.
But she never strayed far from the buzzy afterlife of Elvis’ orbit.
When Elvis died in 1977, their daughter Lisa Marie was just 9 and his father, Vernon Presley, took the reins as executor of his estate. After Vernon died in 1979, Priscilla, a successor trustee, assumed the role of primary manager.
Despite the celebrated influence and global popularity of Elvis, who was estimated to have earned anywhere between $100 million to $1 billion, his estate was in shambles — worth only about $5 million. Graceland’s costly maintenance and massive IRS bills were fast depleting Lisa Marie’s inheritance.
The poor state of affairs was due in part to Elvis’ profligate spending. He was known to lavish Cadillacs and jewelry on friends, many of whom were also on his payroll. But his fortune’s wane was exacerbated by the abusive control that his longtime manager Col. Tom Parker exerted over his business affairs.
The cigar-chomping Parker, who died in 1997, was a former carnival barker and a compulsive gambler. He wasn’t, however, a colonel — the Dutch-born “Parker’s” real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk.
During his time as Elvis’ manager, Parker took commissions as high as 50%, and frequently cut deals that enriched himself at the rocker’s expense.
Four years before Elvis died, Parker sold off his back catalog to RCA for $5.4 million (with Parker taking $2.6 million and Elvis $2.8 million), depriving the estate of untold millions in royalties.
In 1981, the co-executors of Elvis’ estate (an attorney separately represented Lisa Marie), sued Parker for massive fraud and mismanagement, claiming he received the “lion’s share” of Elvis’ income, even after his death. The parties eventually reached an out-of-court settlement.
Reviving Graceland
But the years of profound missteps and mismanagement left Elvis’ estate facing the prospect of bankruptcy and worse, having to sell Graceland. Priscilla brought in a team of financial advisers and lawyers who engineered a stunning financial turnaround.
Visitors queue to enter the Graceland mansion of Elvis Presley on Aug.12, 2017, in Memphis, Tennessee. (Mandel Ngan/Getty Images of North America/TNS)
In 1981, the Elvis Presley Trust created Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. to conduct business and manage the trust’s assets, including Graceland, which was opened to the public the following year. Now a National Historic Landmark, the tourist shrine generates an estimated $10 million annually.
By the time Lisa Marie inherited her father’s estate upon her 25th birthday in 1993, the estate had rebounded. Two decades later, Graceland, along with the merchandising of Elvis’ image and managing his music royalties, was worth upward of $500 million.
Then, in 2005, Elvis’ estate changed hands. Lisa Marie agreed to sell 85% of EPE’s assets, including her father’s likeness rights, to music entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman and his company CKX Inc. for $114 million.
Under the deal, Lisa Marie retained 15% of the trust and received $50 million in cash as well as $26 million in CKX common and preferred stock. She also retained sole ownership of Graceland and her father’s personal items. Priscilla received $6.5 million for the use of the family name, Fortune reported.
But in 2013, CKX Inc. sold its majority interest in the estate to the intellectual property firm Authenic Brands Group for a reported $145 million.
The problems that had long trailed the estate surfaced again five years later.
This time it was Lisa Marie who alleged she had been duped. Then 50 and in the middle of divorcing her fourth husband Michael Lockwood, the father of her twin girls, she sued her business manager Barry Siegel. She claimed that as a result of his “reckless and negligent mismanagement” the trust had dwindled to just $14,000 and was left with $500,000 in credit card debt.
Siegel denied the allegations and countersued, claiming that she had “squandered” her fortune as a result of her “excessive spending.” At the time, court filings related to her divorce from Lockwood, revealed that she was $16.7 million in debt.
A mother, daughter feud
When Lisa Marie died suddenly in January 2023 at the age of 54, another tense legal battle erupted over the estate and the trust Lisa Marie had set up.
Riley Keough, left, and Priscilla Presley arrive at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, on Jan. 15, 2024. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Within weeks of her death, Priscilla went to court to challenge an amendment that removed her as a trustee, making her granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough, sole trustee. Priscilla’s lawyers argued that the signature was “inconsistent” with Lisa Marie’s handwriting.
The matter was settled five months later. Keough was named sole trustee. In exchange for stepping down, Priscilla received a $1 million lump sum payment paid out of Lisa Marie’s $25 million life insurance policy and was made a special adviser for a trust relating to EPE, for which she would receive $100,000 annually for 10 years or until her death.
Priscilla was also granted permission to be buried in the Meditation Garden at Graceland near Elvis’ gravesite and to be given a memorial service on the property.
‘Dame’ Kruse
By spring 2023, as Priscilla resolved her dispute with her daughter’s estate, Kruse’s presence and influence in her personal and business affairs deepened.
When they met, Priscilla was in her mid-70s and her main source of income derived from her paid personal appearances. Kruse’s suit described Presley’s celebrity as “a mere shadow of what it once was, and her earning potential was only a fraction of what it previously was.”
Moreover, she claimed that Priscilla was 60 days away from financial disaster, and drowning under $700,000 in outstanding tax debts.
Then 39, Kruse was publicly portrayed as a success, active in the worlds of celebrity and philanthropy and who spoke multiple languages. She highlighted her advocacy for children with autism and AIDS research; donating money to related causes and delivering toys to orphans in global conflict zones with her husband, Vahe Sislyan.
On social media and in news releases, Kruse showcased her activities and accolades, posting images alongside various marquee names such as the pop star Gwen Stefani and President Donald Trump and his wife Melania.
In 2016, seven years after Kruse and her husband founded GWS, she was the first female auctioneer to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records (for selling the largest abandoned world property). Kruse formally added the honorific title “Dame” to her name after a member of the royal Italian Medici family conferred the title of Cavaliere, a kind of knighthood, on her.
In media interviews, Kruse liked to say that the sale of Elvis’ “lost jet” had seared her reputation as the rocker’s memorabilia dealer. Over the years she was prolific, selling a number of his items, including the Smith & Wesson that he was said to have purchased in 1973 after he was attacked onstage in Las Vegas.
According to Priscilla, she first met Kruse in June 2021 after the auctioneer texted her saying she’d like to meet for lunch.
They dined at Gucci Osteria in Beverly Hills followed by numerous other get-togethers in Los Angeles. Kruse introduced her to her “business partner,” Kevin Fialko, “an investor, experienced businessman, and financial expert,” who “would help Kruse get my financial affairs in order,” according to a declaration submitted by Priscilla.
“When I first met Brigitte Kruse, she wanted to involve me in her auction business,” she wrote in her March declaration.
From there, Kruse “quickly immersed herself” in Priscilla’s life, “often sending her multiple text messages a day, and “telling her how much she loved her and admired her,” according to her elder abuse complaint. She also talked up her credentials, lineage and expertise in the auction business as well as her “connections to celebrities.”
In September 2021, Priscilla participated in one of GWS’ online auctions that featured a private lunch with her and Kruse, with a portion of the proceeds going to a charity. A number of Elvis items were also auctioned off, such as the white eyelet jumpsuit cape he wore during his 1972 performances at Madison Square Garden and a jar of his hair.
“She’s just such a wealth of experience and knowledge. You don’t study and learn about Elvis without learning about Priscilla as well. Their names are synonymous,” Kruse told People.
The following year, Kruse’s GWS conducted an online auction billed as “The Lost Jewelry Collection of Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker,” including watches, rings and cuff links that Elvis had bought or commissioned for his manager.
Although she didn’t own any of the items, Priscilla provided “letters of recollection” vouching for her personal historical memories of many of them, according to the auction’s online catalog notes.
“There is so much product out there that is not authentic at all and that worries me,” she said in a video with Reuters after viewing the collection. “I want to know for sure that that is going to go to someone who is going to care for it, love it.”
By January 2023, Priscilla and Kruse agreed to set up several companies to exploit Priscilla’s name and image and to bolster Kruse’s Elvis memorabilia auctions through Priscilla’s written “recollections.”
The terms of their agreement gave Kruse 51% and Presley 49% of Priscilla Presley Partners LLC, according to court filings.
Soon after, however, Priscilla alleged Kruse and Fialko “expanded the scope of their interest in my affairs, seeking to inject themselves into every area of my life.”
They gained her trust and isolated her from key advisers, setting the stage for “a meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme,” intended “to drain her of every last penny she had,” Presley alleged in her lawsuit.
Presley says that she was “fraudulently induced” to sign documents without the opportunity to review them in advance or “advised as to the nature of the paperwork.”
The contracts gave Kruse a controlling interest in her name, image and likeness in perpetuity. They also granted her power of attorney over Priscilla’s affairs and health care and named Kruse a trustee on her personal and family trusts, according to Priscilla’s declaration.
Along with Fialko, Kruse closed Priscilla’s bank accounts and opened new ones “in an effort to transfer the funds of Presley’s various personal, business and trust accounts.”
Priscilla claims she also signed a five-year lease on a house in Orlando, Florida, owned by Sislyan, that she never asked for or wanted.
Further, Priscilla alleges in a declaration that Kruse and Fialko leaned on Coppola to get a credit on the biopic and diverted $120,000 of money Presley earned from the film into their own accounts.
When Lisa Marie died, Priscilla contended that Kruse and Fialko improperly inserted themselves into her legal dispute over her daughter’s trust, she said in her complaint. They also had the “audacity” to demand that they were allowed “to attend any memorial service for Presley in the future,” she added.
By August 2023, Priscilla severed ties with Kruse.
A lawyer representing Kruse and Fialko did not respond to a request for comment.
A few months later, Kruse, through Priscilla Presley Partners, sued for breach of contract, saying Priscilla asked Kruse to take over her business affairs, requiring her to “devote her attention full-time to managing Priscilla’s life” in order to “monetize various aspects of her (Presley’s) life.”
Kruse and Fialko maintained they worked tirelessly to keep Priscilla from “financial ruin and public embarrassment,” and that she fully understood the agreements she was signing.
Meanwhile, others began to question the authenticity around some of GWS’s Elvis sales.
When GWS held another online auction of Elvis memorabilia in January 2023 that included a one-of-a-kind grommet jacket that Elvis wore in 1972, it drew the attention of Elvis Presley Enterprises.
“We know there was only one made, and guess what? We have it in our archives,” Weinshanker, EPE’s managing partner, told NBC News, last July.
GWS said the claims were unsubstantiated: “GWS stands behind everything that it sells, and categorically denies tracking in fake or inauthentic items attributed to Elvis Presley, or otherwise.”
The tensions escalated last November, after GWS announced another “lost” collection auction of Elvis and Col. Parker memorabilia, comprising 400 items.
The cache of documents included telegrams Elvis and Parker sent to Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and others, handwritten notes and Elvis’ signed 1956 contract with the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas, included in the auction, that rang alarm bells.
The estate’s lawyers in December sent a cease and desist letter to GWS, claiming the listed auction items were the property of Graceland and demanded their immediate return. Nonetheless, GWS went forward with the sale, contending in a letter it had acted appropriately.
On Dec. 24, the estate sued GWS, Kruse and two others, claiming the items belonged to Graceland and were “improperly and illegally offered for sale at auction.” They sought to recover at least 74 “irreplaceable documents,” and alleged that the defendants were in “possession of perhaps thousands more such items.”
According to the suit, the allegedly “stolen” items were part of an enormous trove that the estate acquired from Parker in 1990 for $1.25 million. GWS has denied that it had engaged in “any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
Elvis’ estate alleges that a former Parker employee named Greg McDonald “took possession” of the documents that should have been turned over to Graceland after Parker died.
Instead, when McDonald died in 2024, his widow Sherry and son Thomas McDonald, who are named as defendants, “took possession of the Property and then delivered it to Brigitte Kruse for sale at GWS,” the lawsuit states.
The suit further asserted that Kruse was aware of the circumstances in which Greg McDonald obtained the items before putting them up for sale. In an email thread between Kruse and Graceland’s longtime archivist in 2021, included in the filings, Kruse wrote that she had a video of her in conversation with McDonald in which he “admits to knowing of the theft,” in regards to the documents.
An attorney for Kruse disputed the claim, saying in a statement that when she had informed the Elvis estate of the existence of McDonald’s collection in 2021, “they did not make a claim to Mr. McDonald alleging that the collection was not rightfully his.”
GWS “never maintained care, custody or control of any of the items” that were auctioned,” the statement read. “We will continue to respect the judicial process and the outcome of the ongoing litigation.”
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times on behalf of himself and his mother, Thomas McDonald said: “The property in which Graceland and Elvis Presley Enterprises are asserting ownership has been in my family’s possession for over forty years as gifts from the Colonel. I am committed to resolving this dispute and vindicating my family’s rights as expediently and fairly as possible.”
Lawyers for EPE and Graceland Holdings did not respond to a request for comment.
As the various lawsuits were unfolding, last April, GWS Auctions was suspended by the Franchise Tax board in California, effectively losing its standing to operate legally due to noncompliance with tax requirements.
In court filings, Kruse and her co-defendants are cited as saying that GWS is “defunct.” However, GWS’ website remains active and currently lists the results of its most recent auction: the Artifacts of Hollywood and Music sale held on June 7 (that included the racing helmet Elvis wore in “Viva Las Vegas,” that sold for $6,500).
Last month, Elvis’ former wife scored a legal win when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a motion by Kruse and her business associates to temporarily put a hold on the elder abuse lawsuit in an effort to move the litigation to Florida.
Priscilla Presley attends the Songwriters Hall of Fame 2024 induction and awards gala at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City on June 13, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS)
In his ruling, Judge Mark H. Epstein expressed frustration with the defendants’ “never-ending series of motions,” underscoring that this was not a a contract-based case. Presley “is suing these defendants for fraud and elder abuse, an aspect of which was allegedly bamboozling her into signing those agreements in the first place.”
The ongoing clash with Kruse has left Priscilla “devastated,” said her attorney, Wayne Harman. “We look forward to the court holding defendants fully accountable for their actions,” he said in a statement.
Amid the fallout with Kruse, the estate faced another controversy.
A mysterious company, Naussany Investments & Private Lending, presented documents claiming that Lisa Marie had borrowed $3.8 million and put up Graceland as collateral but had failed to repay the loan before she died.
But it was an elaborate scam, according to federal authorities, who in August arrested a Missouri woman, Lisa Jeanine Findley, alleging she used fake documents to “steal the family’s ownership interest in Graceland” and attempted to put it up for sale.
In February, Findley pleaded guilty to mail fraud for her role in the scheme and is scheduled to be sentenced. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
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