Priscilla Presley is being sued for more than $50 million by her former business partners, who claimed Elvis’ ex-wife defrauded them and broke their contract.
Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko filed the suit this week, claiming that Presley used them to promote her name, image and likeness, but had sold the rights decades before, The Associated Press reported.
A year ago Presley, 80, accused the pair for engaging in elder abuse in a "meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme” to “prey on an older woman by gaining her trust, isolating her from the most important people in her life, and duping her into believing that they would take care of her (personally and financially), while their real goal was to drain her of every last penny she had.”
Kruse, an auctioneer, and Fialko, an entrepreneur, said they are really the victims because they invested millions of dollars and years of work in bringing back her brand.
Both Kruse and Fialko dealt in Elvis memorabilia.
They also claim that Presley tried to profit from the death of her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, and tried to get a portion of Elvis’ estate.
In the suit, they claim Priscilla Pressley ignored her daughter’s health issues during the Golden Globes in January 2023, People magazine reported. Lisa Marie Presley died days later, at the age of 54, after suffering a cardiac arrest.
“Priscilla, who knew that Lisa was in the process of taking steps to remove her as the sole trustee of Lisa’s irrevocable life insurance trust, saw an opportunity to regain control,” the lawsuit claims, according to People. The filing said that Priscilla Presley went to the hospital and allegedly “pulled the plug” before Lisa Marie’s daughter Riley Keough could get there, despite Lisa Marie’s “clear directive to ‘prolong her life,’” the lawsuit claimed, according to the publication.
TMZ said that the lawsuit alleged that it happened hours after Lisa Marie was admitted to the hospital.
They said that they worked on a deal two years ago to end the legal disagreement between Priscilla Presley and Keough, over the estate. Priscilla Presley got $2.4 million from the agreement, but Kruse and Fialko said that Priscilla cut them off, violating the contracts they had with her, soon after the agreement was reached, the AP reported.
Priscilla Presley sued them, claiming, “By isolating her and immersing themselves in every aspect of her life, the Defendants were able to fraudulently induce Presley into giving them power of attorney, control over her family and personal trusts, and control over her bank accounts,” the AP reported.
Marty Singer, Priscilla’s attorney, said of the lawsuit, it is “one of the most shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless lawsuits I have seen in my practice,” adding that it is “nothing more than a sad and vicious attempt to falsely tarnish the reputation of an eighty year old woman in blatant retaliation for bringing a lawsuit to redress the wrongful conduct of Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, and their co-conspirators,” People magazine reported.
Keough, the only heir to her mother’s estate, stands behind her grandmother 100% and is equally disgusted with this latest, vicious attempt by Kruse to attempt to ruin her grandmother’s life," Singer said.
©2024 Cox Media Group
