Lovers of the King are in turmoil. His three granddaughters who are now his heirs are trying to stop the sale of Graceland, his legendary property in Memphis Tennessee, at the last minute. The auction is scheduled to take place this Thursday. Graceland became a museum in 1982, five years after King’s death. It is the most famous private house in the United States after the White House. More than 500,000 visitors flock there each year. Elvis Presley purchased this former farm property in 1957 for $102,500.
In 2020, his value was estimated between $400 and $500 million. Elvis moved into this neo-colonial residence as soon as filming for Jailhouse Rock was completed. He built his famous swimming pool in the shape of a guitar and its wrought iron grilles in the shape of musical notes. He lived there for twenty years and died there on August 16, 1977. Graceland was then owned by Vernon, Elvis’s father, then by Lisa Marie, the King’s only daughter, on her 25th birthday.
Upon his death in January 2023, Graceland became the property of Lisa Marie’s three daughters. It is in this 14 hectare estate that Elvis is buried with his parents, his daughter Lisa Marie and his grandson Benjamin. The estate today contains several museums, a hotel, restaurants and a performance hall/cinema and the archives of the king of rock’n’roll. This is where traveling exhibitions on Elvis are organized, such as the one in London currently.
Faced with danger, actress and director Riley Keough, who represents her two minor sisters, filed a summary complaint (urgently). According to the Presley family, this is a scam on the part of Kurt Naussany, head of the company Naussany Investments. Last year after the death of their mother Lisa Marie in January 2023, the rocker’s only daughter, Riley Keough and her little sisters took the helm of the family empire. The investment company claims that shortly before her disappearance, Lisa Marie Presley gave Graceland as collateral in exchange for paying $3.8 million. On paper, it’s possible, Lisa Marie has always lived beyond her means to the point of gradually handing over her father’s assets. But this time, the family strongly denies it.
“Lisa Marie Presley never borrowed money from Naussany Investments and she did not sign any document where she mortgaged the property,” reads the summary complaint from Riley Keough’s lawyer. The latter goes even further, writing that “Naussany Investments is a fictitious company created solely to defraud the Presley family.” He points out that the telephone number indicated on the court documents is out of service and that emails sent to the various addresses return to the sender. On the opposing party’s documents, Lisa Marie Presley’s signature was allegedly forged. Two other clues suggest that this document is a forgery. The King’s daughter reportedly signed it in May 2018 online in front of an American notary Kimberly Philbrick in Duval County, Florida. First concern: electronic signatures made remotely were only authorized in Florida in 2020. Second concern: at the beginning of May 2024, Kimberly Philbrick swore under oath that she had never seen these documents. “I never met Lisa Marie Presley or even received signed documents from her at my office. I don’t understand how my name and my firm appear on these documents.”
It all started in September 2023. With the greatest discretion, the investment company presented a 61-page document to Riley Keough’s lawyers and then bombarded them with threatening emails. According to the lawyer for Elvis Presley Enterprises which manages Graceland, “the fraud is obvious. The summary complaint was filed to stop this fraud.” Priscilla Presley, the King’s only wife and maternal grandmother of the three heiresses, also expressed her anger on social networks at the start of the week. She posted a photo from Graceland and wrote underneath: “What a scam!”
The summary hearing is scheduled at Shelby County Chancery Court in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday at 9 a.m. local time. In the meantime, Kurt Naussany has been banned by the judges from selling the property. He nevertheless decided to organize an auction of Graceland outside the court, Thursday May 23 at 11 a.m. Ryan Keough asks judges to ban the sale permanently and convict Kurt Naussany of fraud.