Lisa Marie Presley's Net Worth: Elvis' Daughter Earns Less Than You Think
Being the daughter of Elvis Presley has to come with some perks, but alas, Lisa Marie Presley's net worth is a lot less than one might think. A lot less, to be honest. When her father died, Presley was just nine years old, though she was obviously left part of his estate. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Elvis' estate was worth $5 million when he died, which translates to about $14 million today. That's a lot of money for a 9-year-old, who shared control of the estate with her grandfather Vernon and her great-grandmother Minnie Mae. Both of them passed away, in 1979 and 1980, respectively. As such, Lisa took on total control of her dad's estate and his trust at the age of 12, though she wouldn't officially be the sole heir until she turned 25 years old.
After Vernon and Minnie Mae's deaths, the estate was reportedly worth $100 million, or $295 million in today's terms. Lisa Marie made some smart financial moves to cover her father's debt. Per the Nashville Post, she sold most of his image and licensing rights of Elvis's legendary property Graceland to a company called Core Media Group, which manages intellectual property, which landed her $53 million in cash and absolved $25 million of the estate's debt. But that doesn't mean she wouldn't, unfortunately, get into some money problems of her own.
Lisa Marie Presley has had financial problems
Although Lisa Marie Presley inherited her father's estate and trust, she's reportedly worth -$16 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Yes, you read that right — negative 16 million dollars. So what happened? As it turns out, it's not really all of her fault.
To start, in November 2017, Lisa Marie alleged that her business manager, Barry Siegel, made some bad business deals, and ended up wasting $100 million of the estate, according to a write-up on Forbes. She sued him in 2018, after having him removed from his position a few years earlier in 2015. In the suit, she claimed that at trust was worth only $14,000 in 2015 when Siegel was removed, and that because he failed to provide an accurate picture of the estate he was managing, she wound up racking up loads of credit card debt.
Siegel, meanwhile, maintained that it was Presley who squandered her money with reckless spending, according to a TMZ report, and put herself $20 million into debt back in 2003. The way Siegel told it, he was actually the one who fixed solved her debt issues for her. When she filed for divorce from Michael Lockwood in 2018, per a report from People, she claimed she was -$16 million in the hole, having about $10 million of unpaid tax debt and then just credit card bills and unpaid attorney's fees.
Lisa Marie Presley also lost her son, Ben
Sadly, Lisa Marie Presley continues having to deal with awful, tragic situations. In addition to money troubles, her son Benjamin, who she shares with ex-husband Danny Keogh, died by suicide in mid-July 2020. A rep for Presley said in a statement that the 52-year-old mom, who also shares a daughter with Keogh and two twins with her other ex, Michael Lockwood, is "devastated," per The Daily Mail.
They said, "She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley. She adored that boy. He was the love of her life." Ben, who was the spitting image of his grandfather Elvis Presley, had reportedly been "struggling" for some time before his death, according to a source close to the family. It was Lisa Marie who reportedly found her dad, Elvis, dead, and having to endure another such tragedy is unimaginable.
No one seems to care about Elvis Presley anymore
Lisa Marie Presley inherited her father's estate and trust, but she's spent most of her adult life trying to revamp it and make Elvis Presley "cool again," as Rolling Stone put it in March 2020. That sounds like an easy way to make some cash, but it's proving to be quite the feat. Rolling Stone reported that sales of Elvis memorabilia dropped from $4 million in 2017 to less than $1.5 million in 2019.
What Graceland and Lisa Marie need is for that to change in order to earn. Sadly, The Guardian reported in 2017 that most people in the United Kingdom, ages 18 to 24, had never even heard an Elvis song, so it would take one heck of a remix to get people interested in his music again enough to buy it or anything with his likeness. It sounds like many of Lisa Marie's financial woes could be solved if only her dad was currently relevant.
Then again, maybe The King is always relevant. Priscilla Presley helped to create a cartoon about her late husband for Netflix that's still in production. Agent King will feature Elvis going undercover as a "crime busting government spy," per the same Rolling Stone report. If that show gets attention and people become interested in Elvis all over again, Lisa Marie and her family's financial problems could theoretically be solved. But they have more to worry about than just money right now.