In the months leading up to Lisa Marie Presley’s death, she lost an alarming amount of weight and was using opioids again as she prepared for the Golden Globes, according to TMZ. The website’s anonymous sources say that the musician and only daughter of Elvis Presley lost 40-50 pounds within six weeks and that she was using weight loss medications. She also recently had plastic surgery.
The report adds to speculation about what may have caused Presley, 54, to suffer a cardiac arrest on January 12 when she was found unresponsive at her Calabasas home by a housekeeper and given CPR by her ex-husband, musician Danny Keough—who had been living with her again for some time—before being transported to a hospital, where she died within hours.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” her mother Pricilla Presley said in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong, and loving woman I have ever known.”
Two days earlier, Presley had attended the Golden Globes alongside her mother to support Austin Butler, who won Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his performance as Lisa Marie’s legendary father in Elvis.
Citing “[f]amily and law enforcement” sources, TMZ reports that Presley complained of abdominal pain on the morning of her death.
Meanwhile, a battle may be brewing over Presley’s estate, with Priscilla contesting the validity of her daughter’s will. She has filed court documents asking a judge to set aside an amendment to Lisa’s 2010 trust. The trust originally named Priscilla as trustee as well as Lisa’s former business manager, Barry Siegel. But in the court filing, obtained by TMZ, Priscilla says she found an amendment removing them both and replacing them with Lisa Marie’s children, Riley and Benjamin Keough. Benjamin died by suicide in 2020.
Priscilla claims that Lisa Marie’s signature on the amendment “appears inconsistent with her usual and customary signature” and that Priscilla’s name is misspelled.
Although a toxicology report and cause of death have not been officially released, Presley struggled opioid addiction is something that Presley had dealt with for many years.
“The struggle in addiction for me started in, you know, 45 years old, it wasn’t like it was happening all my life,” Presley said on The Today Show in 2018. “I’m not perfect, my father wasn’t perfect.” It was the first time Presley had publicly opened up about her substance abuse, as she promoted her album, Where No One Stands.
Then in 2019, she wrote the forward for The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain, by Harry Nelson, finding the courage to dive deeper into her battles with addiction, including the humiliation that comes with it.
“We live in a culture of shame that keeps us afraid of being honest about what we are dealing with,” Presley wrote. “We are embarrassed to be vulnerable… We allow shame to prevent us from reaching out for help.”
She was laid to rest at Graceland, next to her son.
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