Lisa Marie Presley had a chance to read the Priscilla movie script before her death — but she wasn’t supportive of it, reportedly finding it to be “vengeful and contemptuous” toward her father, Elvis Presley. In emails obtained by Variety, Lisa Marie wrote to the film’s director, Sofia Coppola, and offered her unfiltered thoughts. Suffice it to say that the musician was not happy with the way the movie depicted her dad.
“My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative,” Lisa Marie wrote to Coppola, 52, in a 2022 email. “As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?” In a second email, Lisa Marie told Coppola that she would “be forced to be in a position where I will have to openly say how I feel about the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly” if the filmmaker did not abandon the project. Lisa Marie’s emails were sent four months before she died — in January 2023 — after suffering a fatal cardiac arrest. She was 54 at the time of her death.
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Priscilla is a biographical drama film written, directed, and co-produced by Coppola. It’s based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley and Sandra Harmon. Actress Cailee Spaeny (Mare of Easttown) portrays Priscilla, while Jacob Elordi (The Kissing Booth franchise) stars as Elvis. Additional cast members include Dagmara Domińczyk, Raine Monroe Boland, Emily Mitchell, Jorja Cadence, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, and Luke Humphrey.
Back in September, Priscilla, 78, got candid about her and Elvis’ age gap, which has long been a controversial topic. The 78-year-old former wife of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was in attendance at the Venice Film Festival to be part of the premiere of Priscilla, which follows Priscilla’s life and has a significant focus on her relationship with Elvis. The two met when Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24.
Speaking to a crowd at the festival, per EW, Priscilla shared, “It was very difficult for my parents to understand that Elvis would be so interested in me and I really do think because I was more of a listener.” She continued, “Elvis would pour his heart out to me, his fears, his hopes, the loss of his mother which he never ever got over, and I was the person who really really sat there to listen and to comfort him. I was a little bit older in life than in numbers and that was the attraction. And you know, people think, ‘Oh, it was sex…’ Not at all. I never had sex with him. He was very kind, very soft, very loving. But he also respected the fact that I was only 14 years old. We were more in mind and thought. And that was our relationship.”
