The bitter legal fued between Priscilla Presley and her former business partner escalated this week.
Brigitte Kruse, the founder of Agoura Hills-based GWS Auctions Inc. and her business associate Kevin Fialko, on Monday filed a new fraud and breach of contract suit against Presley in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The suit alleges that Elvis’s ex-wife “undermined their business ventures” and exploited the death of her daughter Lisa Marie Presley in order to gain control over her trust and Graceland. They are seeking more than $50 million in damages.
The pair allege they “invested thousands of hours of their time” and “millions of dollars into Priscilla” to revive her public image and brand only to have their business relationship severed by Presley.
The suit calls Presley, 80, an “opportunist” and describes a tumultuous relationship between her and her daughter.
Presley’s attorney Wayne Harman was not available for comment.
Kruse first filed a breach of contract suit against Elvis’s former wife in Florida two years ago after she cut ties with the joint business venture they formed to to set up several companies to exploit Priscilla Presley’s name and image and to bolster Kruse’s Elvis memorabilia auctions.
Last year Presley, sued Kruse, who is about half her age, and her business associates for fraud and elder abuse in L.A., claiming she was forced into a “form of indentured servitude,” leading her into signing away 80% of her income. Kruse denied the claims.
While Kruse’s Los Angeles suit surfaces many of the earlier claims, it also provides a counter-narrative to several of the allegations contained in Presley’s fraud suit, her attorney said.
“The evidence will establish that the real victims here are my clients, who invested millions and years of hard work into revitalizing Priscilla Presley’s brand, only to be betrayed and falsely accused once the money was on the table and every personal and business issue had been resolved,” said their attorney Jordan Matthews in a statement.
The suit contends that Priscilla “strong-arm[ed]” Elvis’s father Vernon in 1979 on his deathbed into making her co-executor of his son’s estate by putting a lien on Graceland and taking over management of the trust.
It further alleges that Priscilla “ultimately wanted to control” her daughter’s trust and Graceland.
Before Lisa Marie died suddenly in Jan. 2023 at the age of 54, her relationship with her mother was severely strained. She refused to walk the red carpet or sit with Presley at the Golden Globes to celebrate the multiple nominations of Baz Luhrmann’s film “Elvis,” according to the lawsuit.
At the time, Lisa Marie was in process of removing her mother as the sole trustee of irrevocable life insurance policy and was “threatening to sue her,” the suit states.
In her complaint, Kruse contends that she and Fialko, “worked to keep the family together, “ and with Presley’s publicist arranged for the women to appear on the red carpet together and sit next to one another during the award ceremony.
Two days later, Lisa Marie suffered cardiac arrest and was rushed to West Hills Hospital.
According to the complaint, Presley did not follow her daughter’s advanced care directive instructions that stated that she wanted her “life to be prolonged as long as possible within the limits of generally accepted health care standards.” A copy of the health care directive from 2010 is included as an exhibit to the suit.
Following Lisa Marie’s death, Presley went to court to challenge an amendment that had earlier removed her as a trustee of Lisa Marie’s estate, the Promenade Trust and made her granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough, sole trustee. The matter was settled five months later.
Kruse alleges that she and Fialko brokered a deal with Keough on Presley’s behalf that secured her a $2.4 million payout and “a seven-figure deal for Priscilla’s son, Navarone.”
Kruse and her company GWS Auctions also are being sued by the Elvis Presley Estate over a cache of documents from Elvis and Col. Tom Parker that they claim were “improperly and illegally offered for sale at auction.” An attorney for Kruse has disputed the claim, saying in a statement that she had informed the Elvis estate of the existence of documents in 2021.
