Priscilla Presley is fighting a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court that seeks at least $50 million from her for fraud and breach of contract, filed by her former business partners Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko. The Priscilla Presley Graceland lawsuit, filed on August 11, 2025, sits alongside Presley’s own financial elder abuse case against the same partners, and the two matters have since been consolidated before Judge Mark Epstein.1
Who Is Suing Priscilla Presley
Brigitte Kruse founded GWS Auctions and began working with Presley in 2021 on Elvis memorabilia auctions. Kruse and Kevin Fialko later formed joint ventures with Presley under the name “Priscilla Presley Partners,” built around commercial use of her name, image, and likeness.
According to Kruse, when she came on board Presley was roughly 60 days from insolvency and owed nearly $700,000 in unpaid taxes. Presley and Kruse signed a contract on video on January 8, 2023, formalizing the partnership. Kruse and Fialko say they invested millions of dollars and years of work stabilizing Presley’s finances and rebuilding her brand.
The relationship collapsed in the summer of 2023, shortly after Lisa Marie Presley’s death. By August 2023, Presley had stopped communicating with Kruse, and her attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter alleging misconduct. Kruse and Fialko filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit in Orange County, Florida, in October 2023. That Florida case has since been placed on hold, with the judge ruling that the California litigation should proceed first because the validity of the underlying business agreements is “squarely in dispute” there.
What the $50 Million Lawsuit Alleges
The August 2025 complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks at least $50 million in damages against Presley and also names Keya Morgan, a business manager previously associated with Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee, as a co-defendant accused of interfering with the partners’ contracts.
The lawsuit’s core claims:
Concealed sale of the “Presley” name. The plaintiffs allege Presley falsely claimed ownership of her name, image, and likeness while hiding a 2005 deal in which she sold the commercial rights to the “Presley” name and “Graceland” to CKX, Inc. for $6.5 million. SEC filings confirm CKX acquired from Priscilla “all commercial rights held by her to use the name ‘Presley'” in connection with the Presley business assets in February 2005. When confronted, the complaint says, Presley denied the agreement existed and later said she had forgotten about it.
Brokered settlement with Riley Keough. Kruse and Fialko say they brokered the 2023 deal that resolved the trust dispute between Priscilla and her granddaughter Riley Keough over Lisa Marie’s estate, securing $2.4 million for Priscilla. Shortly afterward, they allege, Presley cut them off.
IRS misrepresentation. The complaint accuses Presley of submitting an IRS Form 433-A on May 4, 2023, reporting only $6,000 in jewelry while allegedly possessing a collection of jewelry and memorabilia at Graceland and an off-site facility worth “upwards of $25 million,” to negotiate down her tax obligations. No IRS or federal investigation into these claims has been publicly reported.
Fabricated elder abuse claims. The suit alleges Presley and Morgan manufactured the elder abuse accusations against Kruse and Fialko as a retaliatory tactic to escape contractual obligations.
Allegations About Lisa Marie Presley’s Death
The most incendiary claim in the lawsuit concerns Lisa Marie Presley’s death in January 2023. The complaint alleges Priscilla authorized the withdrawal of life support within hours of Lisa Marie’s hospital admission following a cardiac arrest, overriding an advance health care directive that instructed her life be prolonged. The plaintiffs allege Priscilla did so to prevent Lisa Marie from removing her as sole trustee of the family trust and to seize control of the Promenade Trust and Graceland. The complaint also alleges Lisa Marie was “noticeably ill” at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards two days before her death and that Priscilla failed to seek medical care for her, and it quotes Priscilla as saying about a week later, “I’m the queen. I’m in charge of Graceland.”
The official autopsy attributed Lisa Marie Presley’s death to a strangulated small bowel caused by post-surgical adhesions, with no finding of foul play.
The Family’s Response
Presley’s attorney, Marty Singer, called the lawsuit “shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless,” and called the allegations about Lisa Marie’s death “absurd and despicable.”
On September 5, 2025, Priscilla Presley and Riley Keough issued a joint statement to People: “We are aware of the latest allegations from Brigitte Kruse. These claims are not only untrue but also deeply hurtful. Our family is, and always has been, united in love and respect for one another. Our shared priority remains honoring Lisa Marie’s memory and protecting Elvis’ legacy with dignity. We will not allow outside voices to divide us or to diminish the strength of our bond as a family.”
Morgan, who was acquitted of elder abuse charges related to Stan Lee after a jury deadlocked, told Rolling Stone he had known Presley and her family “for many years” and that “the truth will ultimately prevail.”
Presley’s Elder Abuse Countersuit
Presley filed her own case first. On July 18, 2024, she filed a financial elder abuse complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court against Kruse, Fialko, Florida attorney Lynn Walker Wright, Vahe Sislyan (identified as Kruse’s husband), and the Priscilla Presley Partners entity. The complaint alleged the group isolated her from family and longtime advisors to gain control over her finances, trusts, and bank accounts.
Presley alleged she was manipulated into signing contracts that gave Kruse a 51 percent interest in her intellectual property while leaving Presley with minority shares in companies profiting from her own name. The complaint called the arrangement “a form of indentured servitude” and alleged the defendants stole more than $1 million from her. Specific allegations included misappropriating funds from the 2023 A24 biopic Priscilla, diverting a $300,000 payment intended for a cosmetics deal, and withdrawing $40,000 from the bank account of Presley’s son, Navarone Garcia, without authorization.
Marty Singer called Kruse “a con artist and pathological liar.” Kruse’s legal team denied all allegations. Claims against Walker Wright, who had categorically denied the elder abuse accusations, were later dropped with prejudice.
Where the Case Stands
In October 2025, Kruse and Fialko’s $50 million claims were filed as a cross-complaint in the Santa Monica elder abuse case, consolidating the dueling lawsuits before Judge Mark Epstein in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Tentative rulings in May 2025 allowed the fraud-based and elder abuse claims to proceed while sustaining a demurrer on the conspiracy cause of action without leave to amend.
On December 1, 2025, Judge Epstein denied a motion by Kruse to disqualify Marty Singer as Presley’s attorney. The judge characterized Kruse’s evidence of a prior attorney-client relationship with Singer as “very thin,” noting there was “no retention agreement, no email, no phone record, no notes of a conversation.”
The case remains open and active. A case management conference was held in January 2026, with multiple hearings on demurrers and motions to quash subpoenas scheduled for May 2026.
Other Graceland Legal Matters
Two other disputes are sometimes folded into coverage of this lawsuit but are legally distinct.
The 2023 Keough trust settlement. Within weeks of Lisa Marie Presley’s death, Priscilla challenged a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s revocable living trust that had removed her as co-trustee and replaced her with Riley Keough and the late Benjamin Keough. In May 2023, Priscilla and Riley Keough settled. Keough became sole trustee. Priscilla received a $1 million lump-sum payment from Lisa Marie’s $25 million life insurance policy, a $50,000 payment for resigning as co-trustee, and a $100,000 annual salary for ten years as a nonfiduciary “special advisor” to the Promenade Trust. The agreement also guaranteed Priscilla the right to be buried in the Meditation Garden at Graceland, in the available grave site closest to Elvis. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge approved the settlement later that year.
The estate’s suit against GWS Auctions. On December 24, 2024, Graceland Holdings LLC and Elvis Presley Enterprises sued GWS Auctions, Kruse, and two other defendants to recover at least 74 irreplaceable documents and items of memorabilia once owned by Colonel Tom Parker that the defendants had allegedly offered for sale. The complaint alleged conversion, unjust enrichment, and violations of California auction-house statutes. On January 28, 2025, a judge granted the plaintiffs’ application for a writ of possession, concluding they had established the “probable validity” of their claim. An attorney for Kruse said Kruse had informed the estate of the documents’ existence in 2021.