Priscilla Presley Vows to “Protect” Her Grandchildren After Lisa Marie Presley’s Death

Priscilla Presley has family in mind.

Nearly three weeks after the death of Lisa Marie Presley, the actress paid tribute to her late daughter in a tribute while expressing her desire to “protect” the singer’s surviving children: her daughter Riley Keough and her twins Finley and Harper Lockwood. (Lisa Marie shared Riley, 33, with her first husband Danny Keough and her twins, 14, with her fourth husband Michael Lockwood.)

“Today would have been Lisa’s 55th birthday,” the 77-year-old began in a statement to E! News. “My wish is to protect my three grandchildren and keep our family together.”

Priscilla, who is also the mother of musician Navarone Garibaldi since her relationship with Marco Garibaldi, continued: “From the first moment I held Lisa in my arms, I protected, loved and guided her, as I have my son. Our hearts are broken and I have to learn to live without my only daughter.”

Showing her gratitude for the outpouring of public support since Lisa Marie’s passing, the matriarch added, “We all truly love you and we feel your prayers. Thank you so much for caring so deeply for our family.”

Lisa Marie Presley and her children through the years

Priscilla’s statement follows a petition her attorneys have filed challenging the validity of Lisa Marie’s will, which names Riley and her younger sisters as successors to their mother’s trust.

Court documents filed Jan. 28 and obtained by E! News claimed that Priscilla and former business manager Barry Siegel were given the title of co-trustees in a living will that Lisa Marie wrote in 1993 and amended in 2010.

However, after Lisa Marie passed away on January 12, Priscilla discovered a 2016 amendment that named Riley and her sisters – as well as Lisa Marie’s son Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide in 2020 – as co-trustees instead. . Priscilla’s petition alleged several “issues surrounding the authenticity and validity” of the amendment, including how Lisa Marie “mistypes her mother’s name” in the document and that her handwriting “seems inconsistent with her signature. habitual and customary”.

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The petition also said that Priscilla never received a copy of the 2016 amendment while Lisa Marie was still alive, asking the court to consider the document “invalid”.

Previously, a spokesperson for Graceland, the Tennessee home Lisa Marie inherited in 1993 from her late father Elvis Presley’s estate, told E! News that the 120-acre property will go to Riley and her sisters after their mother’s death.

Lisa Marie was laid to rest near the graves of Benjamin and Elvis at Graceland’s Meditation Garden on January 22.

E ! News reached out to reps for Priscilla, Barry and Riley to comment on the petition, but did not hear back.