Riley Keough has finally opened up about her bitter feud with her grandmother Priscilla Presley over her late mother Lisa Marie’s multi-million dollar estate – insisting things ‘will be happy again’ between their couple after the resolution of their long legal battle.
Earlier this month, the 34-year-old actress and model was named sole trustee of her late mother’s estate – which includes the Graceland property – after she apparently agreed to pay her grandmother $1million , as well as $400,000 in legal fees.
Now Riley opened up about the legal battle with Priscilla in an interview with vanity loungeadmitting in the post that his family had been thrown into ‘chaos’ following his mother’s death, and that they had been left ‘freaked out’ over how to deal with their grief alongside the future of ‘the company” Presley.
“When my mother passed away, there was a lot of chaos in all aspects of our lives,” shared the mother-of-one – who welcomed a daughter with husband Ben Smith-Petersen via surrogate in 2022 – shared.
Riley Keough has finally opened up about her bitter feud with her grandmother Priscilla Presley over her late mother Lisa Marie’s multi-million dollar estate
“When my mother passed away, there was a lot of chaos in all aspects of our lives,” shared the mother-of-one – who welcomed a daughter via surrogate in 2022 –
Riley (seen with Priscilla, Lisa Marie and Lisa Marie’s twin daughters Harper and Finley) found herself embroiled in a legal battle over her late mother’s estate after her death in January
“Everything looked like the carpet had been ripped out and the floor had melted under us.
“Everyone was a little panicked to understand how we were progressing, and it only took a minute to understand the details of the situation, because it’s complicated. We are a family, but there is also a huge business side of our family.
She added that the situation between her and Priscilla was all the more complicated as they had never had to deal with the “business” side of their family inheritance before, noting that their relationship had never gone beyond that of a grandmother and granddaughter.
After her mother’s death in January this year, reports quickly spread of a bitter rift between Priscilla and Riley, who became embroiled in a legal battle over a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie’s will, which excised Priscilla as estate trustee.
Priscilla’s lawyers said she only learned about the amendment after her daughter’s death.
The amendment removed Priscilla and Lisa Marie’s former business manager, Barry Siegel, and replaced them with Lisa Marie’s children, Riley and Benjamin Keough.
Benjamin died in 2020 after taking his own life at the family mansion, with sources revealing he was struggling at the time.
However, that dispute has now been resolved after Riley agreed to pay her grandmother $1.4 million – including $400,000 in legal fees – and the actress says things between her and Priscilla get back on track.
Riley says she and her grandmother have now found a common “clarity” on the best way to move forward, which has set them on the path to mending their fractured relationship, although she insists there was never any “discontent” between them.
“Things with grandma will be happy… They were never happy,” she said. “There was a bit of upheaval, but now everything will go back to how it was.”
She went on to praise her grandmother – who was married to rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley for seven years – as a ‘beautiful woman’, highlighting the ‘enormous’ role Priscilla played in “the creation of my grandfather’s legacy and Graceland”.
‘It’s very important to her. He was the love of her life,’ Riley continued, noting that all her grandmother wants is “to love and protect Graceland and the Presley family and the legacy.”
One of the newest members of this dynasty is Riley’s daughter, whose name the actress revealed for the very first time in her Vanity Fair interview: Tupelo Storm Smith-Petersen.
Elvis fans will immediately recognize the significance of his daughter’s first name as the music legend’s birthplace – although Riley says she picked the nickname before the release of the recent biopic about her grandfather , putting the Mississippi city front and center.
“I was like, ‘That’s great because it’s not really a well-known word or name relative to my family, it’s not like Memphis or anything like that,'” he said. she explains. “Then when the Elvis movie came out, it was like, Tupelo this and Tupelo that.
‘I was like, ‘Oh, no. But it is okay.
Riley, who has been keeping close tabs on the details of her daughter’s birth, also opened up about her decision to welcome a child via surrogate, explaining that while she “can carry children,” she felt it was was “better” for her not to. due to his ongoing autoimmune issues caused by his Lyme disease diagnosis.
