Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, has died at the age of 54. Earlier today (Jan. 12), it was reported that she suffered a heart attack. Priscilla Presley confirmed the news of her daughter’s passing to the Associated Press.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Presley said in the statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.” Earlier this week, both Presleys attended the Golden Globes in support of Austin Butler, who won an award for playing Elvis in last year’s film of the same name.
Earlier in the day, Priscilla wrote on social media that “My beloved daughter Lisa Marie was rushed to the hospital. She is now receiving the best care. Please keep her and our family in your prayers. We feel the prayers from around the world, and ask for privacy during this time.”
After her parents’ divorce in 1973, Presley grew up with her mother in Los Angeles and at Elvis’ Graceland mansion in Memphis. She was just nine years old when her father died in 1977 at the age of 42. In 1980, she became the sole heir to the Presley estate after her grandfather and great-grandmother died. She sold 85% of the estate’s holdings in 2004 to SFX Entertainment founder Robert F.X. Sillerman for a reported $100 million, but retained the rights to Graceland, which remains a major tourist attraction.
In 2003, Presley released her first album, To Whom It May Concern, which was a success. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. She would go on to release two more albums, Now What in 2005 and 2012’s Storm & Grace.
She was married four times, to Michael Jackson, Nicolas Cage, Michael Lockwood, and Danny Keough, with whom she’d have two children. Presley is survived by her mother and her children Riley, Harper, and Finley. Her son Benjamin died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27.
Tributes are pouring in from throughout Hollywood and the music business. Rita Wilson wrote on behalf of herself and her husband Tom Hanks, who played Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis. “Tom and I had spent some time with the family during the Elvis movie promotional tour,” she said. “Lisa Marie was so honest and direct, vulnerable, in a state of anticipation about the movie. She spoke so eloquently about her father, what the movie meant to her, that it was a celebration of her dad. She had her gorgeous daughters Finley and Harper with her who made us all laugh. She privately showed us her home, Graceland, and she made it feel like home to us.”
“There is heartbreak and then there is sorrow,” Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan wrote on Twitter. “This would be sorrow and on more levels than I can count. Please send your prayers out for her family and children at this difficult time. I truly cannot find the words to express how sad this truly is.”
