Priscilla Presley is being sued by Priscilla Presley, the company. Or, more precisely, the former wife of Elvis Presley is being sued by Priscilla Presley Partners LLC (PPP), which won the first round in a lawsuit filed in October when an Orange County, Florida judge ordered an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the Florida court has jurisdiction over Los Angeles-based Priscilla in PPP’s case.
The lawsuit alleges that in 2022 Presley was broke and sought help from an auctioneer, Brigitte Kruse, who agreed to help her exploit her name and likeness. For several years the two had been developing a relationship as Kruse helped Presley auction off some Elvis memorabilia. But then, the lawsuit says, Presley asked Kruse to take on even more responsibility and the two of them formed PPP in January 2023, with Kruse as majority owner.
The timing seemed good, as Kruse says in her complaint that she helped negotiate the movie project Priscilla, based on Presley's memoir Elvis and Me, which was being produced by A24 and directed by Sofia Coppola. But months later, as the film was about to come out, Kruse alleges that Presley suddenly cut off her and PPP, excluding her from the film premiere and any other opportunity to do business.
Now, PPP is suing Presley for breach of contract in Florida, where PPP was formed, and Priscilla's response is to claim that she is based in Los Angeles and has no real ties to Florida.
Kruse (as PPP’s owner), was successful in convincing Judge John E. Jordan to order an evidentiary hearing, to be scheduled in the next 45 days, and she’s also seeking to submit video of Presley signing the documents creating PPP.
And while that's all being hashed out, Kruse has revealed some interesting details about Presley's financial woes in the meantime.
“It is well known that Priscilla was not a beneficiary of Elvis’ estate,” the lawsuit states, pointing out that Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley was his primary beneficiary. So, the complaint says, Priscilla has had to rely on her celebrity to make ends meet, and by 2022 she was “facing large liabilities.”
That August, the complaint alleges she asked Kruse to step in, and leave her auctioneer duties to help her full time. Kruse agreed to help Priscilla, and she brought on more help, a man named Kevin Fialko. Once they committed to the job, however, they realized that Priscilla was in a deeper financial hole than they knew.
“Priscilla was approximately 60 days from insolvency. Additionally, Priscilla was faced with nearly $700,000 in unpaid tax debt, with no promise of future income,” the lawsuit says.
The next month, in September 2022, news broke that Coppola was directing a film version of Priscilla’s memoir. PPP claims that Kruse and Fialko took advantage of the news about the upcoming film to help Priscilla crawl out of her financial hole.
In January 2023, they made it formal when Priscilla was in Florida, signing an agreement to create PPP on January 8. Kruse would hold 51 percent of the membership of PPP, and Priscilla would be a minority owner with 49 percent.
“Kruse and Priscilla agreed to form PPP to own, control, develop, protect, and commercially exploit Priscilla's name, image, and likeness,” the lawsuit says. What Kruse and Fialko didn’t know, according to PPP’s lawsuit, was that Priscilla had already sold her right to the name “Presley” to Authentic Brands Group, and so PPP was limited to exploiting her first name.
Also, just days after the agreement was signed, on January 12, Priscilla’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley died, throwing everything into chaos.
A highly publicized dispute ensued, for example, over the fact that in 2016, Lisa Marie had amended the Promenade Trust, which she had received from her father’s estate, and replaced Priscilla with her own children. Priscilla contested this, claiming that Lisa’s signature had been forged, leading to a press frenzy over the apparent battle over Lisa’s money between her daughter Riley Keough and her mother Priscilla.
Some of the media at the time noted the odd detail that Priscilla was filing her petition through her “attorney-in-fact,” a woman named Brigitte Kruse.
That dispute was settled in May 2023, with Priscilla receiving $1 million. And PPP continued to work on exploiting Priscilla's name and image to help her raise money. But in June 2023, a man named Keya Morgan arrived on the scene, saying he was a friend of Priscilla’s and claiming he wanted to help PPP do its work, the lawsuit says.
In August, Kruse was sent a letter from Morgan’s attorney accusing her of misconduct, including trying to sell Priscilla’s house, and demanded that she cease any activity on behalf of Priscilla.
Priscilla herself at that point cut off all contact with PPP or Kruse, and excluded them from the premiere of the Priscilla movie at the Venice Film Festival on September 4. (It opened wide on October 27 to positive reviews, and has made $30 million in worldwide box office—though it received zero Oscar nominations.)
Three days later after the Venice Film Festival premiere, NBC announced that it was producing a special titled “Christmas at Graceland.” Kruse and Fialko were also excluded from this deal or the production.
By this point, Kruse, Fialko, and PPP itself allege they had been frozen out entirely by Priscilla. So PPP is suing, pointing to the agreements that were signed at the beginning of 2023 and alleging breach of contract.
On November 30, Priscilla’s law firm Cozen O’Connor filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction, saying that Priscilla was a California resident and had no business in Florida. (Cozen O’Connor did not respond to a request for comment.)
Priscilla claimed that Kruse had “targeted” her in California, “and eventually convinced Ms. Presley to allow Ms. Kruse to become Ms. Presley's business manager and trusted advisor.” The motion claims that Priscilla eventually realized that Kruse was “attempting to misappropriate Ms. Presley’s assets and were engaging in other acts of wrongdoing.”
But Priscilla has no real ties to Florida and was a minority owner of PPP, her attorney argues, so the court lacks jurisdiction over her. Still, even Priscilla’s attorney acknowledges that she did go to Orlando in January 2023 to sign the agreements creating PPP.
PPP’s lawyer Kate Saft responded by pointing out that the lawsuit concerns a Florida-based company (PPP) that was formed in Florida by a Florida attorney that Priscilla chose. And the damage done to PPP by Priscilla has affected Kruse in Florida. (Saft responded to an email by saying, “We have no comment at this time.”)
And, to make it even more plain that Priscilla did have more extensive connections to Florida, Saft details in court papers the plans that Priscilla had in 2022 to move there. With her large debts, Priscilla needed to find a way to live more cheaply, and Florida, with its lack of state income taxes and lower housing costs compared to California, seemed like a solution.
The lawsuit alleges that Priscilla engaged a realtor to look for homes, and the realtor personally showed Priscilla a house on January 5, 2023 that reminded her of Graceland. She allegedly wanted a house with a large lot in order to build a studio in an outbuilding.
According to the lawsuit, Priscilla also sought help from Donald Trump’s realtor for finding a property. “[Priscilla] requested information from former president Trump’s assistant, Eliza Thurston,’ regarding Mr. Trump’s realtor, for additional assistance in locating property in the Palm Beach area... The day after meeting former president Trump, Defendant sat in Florida, and formed PPP,” the lawsuit says.
But then, after months of work together, as the Coppola film was about to come out, Priscilla “ceased participation out of the blue,” according to PPP’s complaint. Kruse asked the court, since the two sides were claiming different facts about the matter, to hold an evidentiary hearing to get to the truth.
Judge John E. Jordan did just that, ordering an evidentiary hearing to occur on May 15.
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