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Priscilla Presley goes to court after Lisa Marie 'wrote her out of trust in control of her fortune'

Priscilla Presley - Patrick Lantrip
Priscilla Presley - Patrick Lantrip

Priscilla Presley is challenging the terms of a trust governing her late daughter Lisa Marie's fortune after discovering she had been replaced as a trustee by her granddaughter.

Lisa Marie, 54, the only daughter of Elvis Presley and Priscilla, died in mid-January after suffering an apparent cardiac arrest at her home in Los Angeles.

The Promenade Trust was created some years ago to hold Lisa Marie's income from Elvis’s estate and Priscilla was named as a co-trustee alongside Lisa Marie's former business manager, Barry Siegel.

Following Lisa Marie's sudden death, Priscilla said she had "discovered" an amendment to the trust which replaced her and Siegel as co-trustees.

Priscilla has asked a California judge to step in to reject the amendment as “invalid”, according to a court filing seen by the celebrity gossip website TMZ.

The amendment dates from March 11, 2016 and named Lisa Marie's daughter Riley Keough and her now-deceased son Benjamin Keough as replacement co-trustees.

Priscilla and Lisa Marie - Bryan Steffy
Priscilla and Lisa Marie - Bryan Steffy

Lisa Marie and Siegel were entangled in an acrimonious court battle over the management of her fortune at the time of her death.

The role of trustee is a powerful one, with the Promenade Trust holding a 15 per cent interest in Elvis's Graceland estate and the licensing of the rock and roll singer’s intellectual property, according to US media.

According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Priscilla claims the amendment was never delivered to her during Lisa Marie's lifetime, as required by the trust agreement, that the date on the document is suspicious and that it misspells her name.

Lisa Marie's signature also appears to be "inconsistent with her usual and customary signature", the filing stated.

The court filing puts Priscilla at odds with her granddaughter Riley. The pair shared emotional tributes to Lisa Marie at the singer-songwriter's funeral. A coroner has deferred declaring a cause of death pending further investigation.

Riley remains one of the trust’s beneficiaries along with Lisa Marie's two other surviving children, Finley and Harper Lockwood.

Brian Malloy, Priscilla’s lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Rolling Stone, which has also seen the court filing.