Lisa Marie Presley may be Elvis Presley‘s only child, but the 50-year-old singer-songwriter reportedly hasn’t seen much of his amassed wealth. In fact, her net worth is reportedly in the red at -$16 million.
Several lawsuits, as well as bad investments throughout the years, have led to the downfall of her inherited $100 million estate. However, Presley’s fortune from the King of Rock and Roll wasn’t always a sure thing. At the time of his death, Elvis’ fortune had dwindled to just $5 million — but by the time of her 25th birthday, it had grown to an estimated $100 million.
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Lisa Marie Presley was owner and chairman of the board until 2005, when she sold 85 percent of the estate’s business holdings, excluding his expansive property Graceland, which she kept. More than a decade later, she revealed that she’s $16 million in debt.
However, Presley claims that she’s in so much debt by no fault of her own, and in 2018 sued her former business manager Barry Siegel and his company, Provident Financial Management, for $100 million for allegedly using all of her father’s money and leaving her with nothing but $14,000.
In court documents, she claimed Siegel, who ran the trust that Elvis left to her when he died in 1977, was being “reckless and negligent” with her funds and forcing her to invest in American Idol‘s holding company, which went bankrupt. Presley claims she lost $24.5 million as a result.
Presley claimed that Siegel advised her incorrectly, claiming that he paid himself an “average annual salary of $701,000 per year” even though she was losing money at an alarming rate. Siegel countersued for $800,000 in damages, claiming he believed Presley was at fault for losing her fortune.
Siegel claimed Presley “squandered” the money that she got from her father’s estate because she had “uncontrollable spending habits” that forced her into financial ruin.
She claimed that Siegel did not give her proper advice on handling the fortune. “Had Barry disclosed the trust’s true financial condition to Lisa and restricted spending to the trust’s ‘income’ rather than its principal assets, Lisa would have lived comfortably on an annual budget of between $1.5 and $2 million per year, after taxes,” documents filed in her lawsuit read. “[But] Barry repeatedly led Lisa to believe she was in ‘good shape’ with her finances.”
Legal paperwork Presley filed in 2018 as part of her divorce proceedings with Michael Lockwood showed that she was $16 million in debt. Documents obtained by Us Weekly show that $10 million is related to unpaid taxes from 2012 to 2015, and $6 million is related to her home in the United Kingdom, while the rest of the debt is related to credit card bills and unpaid attorney’s fees. Presley filed the paperwork after Lockwood demanded $450,000 to cover his legal fees.
Presley and Lockwood, who share 9-year-old twin daughters, separated in June 2016 after 10 years of marriage. Previously, she was married to musician Danny Keough from 1998 to 1994; they share a daughter and son. Twenty days after her divorce from Keough, Presley married Michael Jackson. Their marriage lasted until she filed for divorce in January 1996, citing irreconcilable differences. In August 2002, she married actor Nicolas Cage, who filed for divorce three months later.
More recently, Presley’s financial struggles have returned to the spotlight after her mother, Priscilla Presley, sold her Los Angeles mansion this week, reportedly to help her daughter with her debt.
“Priscilla would never have done this if she didn’t believe it was her daughter’s last chance,” a source told Radar Online.
