Riley Keough finally breaks her silence on bitter feud with Priscilla Presley – admitting family was thrown into ‘chaos’ after Lisa Marie’s death, but insisting things ‘will be happy again’ after she was named sole trustee of her mom’s estate
Riley Keough has finally spoken out about her bitter feud with grandma Priscilla Presley over her late mother Lisa Marie’s multi-million-dollar estate – insisting that things ‘will be happy again’ between their pair after their lengthy legal battle was resolved. Earlier this month, the 34-year-old actress and model was named as the sole trustee of her late mom’s estate – which includes ownership of Graceland – after reportedly agreeing to pay her grandmother $1 million, as well as $400,000 in legal fees.
Now, Riley has opened up about the legal tussle with Priscilla in an interview with Vanity Fair, admitting to the publication that her family was thrown into ‘chaos’ in the wake of her mother’s death, and that they were left ‘in a panic’ about how to manage their grief alongside the future of the Presley ‘business’.
‘Everything felt like the carpet had been ripped out and the floor had melted from under us.
‘Everyone was in a bit of a panic to understand how we move forward, and it just took a minute to understand the details of the situation, because it’s complicated. We are a family, but there’s also a huge business side of our family.’
She added that the situation between herself and Priscilla was made all the more complicated by the fact that they had never had to deal with the ‘business’ side of their family legacy before, noting that their relationship had never moved beyond that of a grandmother and granddaughter.
After her mother’s death in January of this year, reports quickly spread of a bitter rift between Priscilla and Riley, who became embroiled in a legal battle over a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s will, which excised Priscilla as trustee of the estate.
Attorneys for Priscilla said she only became aware of the amendment after the death of her daughter.
The amendment removed Priscilla and Lisa Marie’s former business manager Barry Siegel, and replaced them with Lisa Marie’s children Riley and Benjamin Keough.
Benjamin died in 2020 after shooting himself dead in the family’s mansion, with sources revealing he had been struggling at the time. However, that dispute has now been solved after Riley agreed to pay her grandma a sum of $1.4 million – including $400,000 in legal fees – in return for being named as the sole trustee of her mother’s estate, which means she will also preside over the sub-trusts for her half sisters Harper and Finley Lockwood, daughters of Lisa Marie’s fourth husband Michael Lockwood.
