Lisa Marie Presley spent years fighting her fourth husband, Michael Lockwood, in a bitter divorce and custody war over their twin daughters. While the public knew her as Elvis’s only child, her private life was unraveling. She was battling an addiction to prescription painkillers while trying to keep sole custody of her kids. Looking for help, she turned to her mother, Priscilla Presley, for support in court. But a single decision during that legal battle shattered what was left of their relationship.
Lisa Marie asked her mom to sign a legal paper saying Lockwood was not a fit father. Priscilla said no. She explained that she had never seen Lockwood do anything bad, and that lying in court is illegal. Priscilla had even looked after the twin girls at her home while the police looked into things. But Lisa Marie didn’t care about legal rules. All she saw was her own mother refusing to back her up against her ex-husband.
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That choice created a rift they never quite moved past. Priscilla later wrote that she believed Lisa Marie never truly forgave her. Their relationship had always been complicated. Priscilla had spent decades running Graceland and protecting Elvis’s massive estate for her daughter, but when it came to personal family crises, the two women rarely saw eye to eye. Lisa Marie felt let down when she needed her mother most, while Priscilla felt trapped between telling the truth under oath and supporting her daughter’s claims.
They did manage to make peace for a short time. In 2022, they walked the red carpet together for the movie Elvis, posing for pictures as a family. But the peace did not stay prolonged. When another Elvis movie was released, with Priscilla helping with the direction, the mother-daughter duo fought again over how Elvis’s image was shown to the world.
Then Lisa Marie passed away in 2023. Her death meant the mother and daughter never got to fix their relationship. Priscilla later shared her feelings and regrets in her books, saying she most regrets not siding with Lisa on this matter.