IT’S been nearly five decades since his passing, but the legend of Elvis lives on in the hearts – and record collections – of millions.
But like so many other legends of the industry who passed away prematurely, recent years have seen more than their fair share of lawsuits, scandals, and fights over slices of the massive fortune that was left behind.
With Priscilla, his ex-wife, currently in the midst of one of those lawsuits, things took their wildest turn yet last week.
In a newly-filed claim was the extraordinary accusation that the father of one of Elvis’s great-grandchildren is none other than John Travolta.
The sensational allegations, which are unproven, come from a $50 million lawsuit against Priscilla Presley by two of her former business associates.
Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Kialko brought the legal action against the King’s ex-wife over work they did to promote her brand.
But it also came in response to a lawsuit that the 80-year-old had filed against them, in which she accused them of draining her bank accounts and taking advantage of her old age.
She said the pair had concocted a scheme to “prey on an older woman by gaining her trust, isolating her from the most important people in her life, and duping her into believing that they would take care of her…while their real goal was to drain her of every penny she had.”
Now, however, Kruse and Fialko are keen to prove that it is in fact they who are the victims.
And it is in this lawsuit that the extraordinary parentage claims can be found.
It states that Riley Keough, 36, Elvis’s granddaughter and an actress, allegedly donated her eggs to John Travolta and his partner Kelly Preston.
This allowed them to welcome their son Ben, now 15, in 2010 – making him technically the King’s great-grandson.
It claimed that Lisa Marie Presley had also donated her eggs so that Preston could have a child.
The surprising revelations allegedly come from Lisa Marie’s ex-husband Michael Lockwood, who, when asked, denied ever making such statements, saying they sounded “crazy”.
Priscilla has also hit out at the “outrageous” allegation that her granddaughter Riley is the biological mother of John Travolta’s youngest son.
An attorney representing both Garcia and Priscilla Presley issued a statement, saying: “After losing motion after motion in this case, and unsuccessfully seeking to have Presley’s counsel of record, Marty Singer, disqualified from representing her in this matter, Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, and their co-conspirators have demonstrated that there is no bar too low, no ethical line that they are unwilling to cross in an effort to cause further pain to Priscilla Presley and her family.
“In a completely improper effort to exert undue pressure on Presley to retract her legitimate, truthful claims, Kruse and her co-conspirators have also sued Presley’s son, cousin, and assistant.
“These recent outrageous allegations have absolutely nothing to do with the claims in this case.”
The filing also alleged that Travolta decided not to use Lisa Marie’s eggs, saying he did not want “eggs with heroin”, in reference to her drug addiction.
Lisa Marie, Elvis’s only child, died in January 2023 aged 53 after going into cardiac arrest.
Her death was deemed natural and related to complications following surgery.
Yet the lawsuit also dramatically accuses Priscilla of intentionally pulling the plug on her daughter, all for financial gain, as she feared Lisa Marie was set to take her name off the family’s trust thus losing the rights to the iconic Graceland mansion – a serious money earner, and the second most visited home in the US, after the White House.
It went on to claim that just a week after her death, Priscilla claimed: “I’m the queen. I’m in charge of Graceland.”
Her lawyer responded firmly. “Accusing a grieving mother of contributing to her daughter’s death is not savvy advocacy; it is malicious character assassination, and should be broadly condemned,” they said.
The lawsuit
It was in 2021 that Priscilla approached Kruse and Fialko for advice on how to brand herself and – the lawsuit claims – they spent hours creating marketing schemes and founding companies that used her name and likeness to generate income.
However, it is alleged that Priscilla had hid, or at least failed to disclose, that she had sold the rights to license her name in a 2006 $6.6 million deal with Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2005.
The lawsuit also included allegations about Elvis’s death, yet again further painting Priscilla in bad light.
They stated that Priscilla’s attempts during her 1973 divorce to the singer to increase her settlement “exerted undue pressure on Elvis, pushing him to his death,” which was firmly denied.
Priscilla started dating Elvis in 1959, when she was just 14, and he died four years after their divorce in 1977.
In response to the latest lawsuit filing, Priscilla’s attorney did not hold back from tearing into Kruse and Fialko.
“The conduct of Kruse, Fialko, and their new lawyers (they are on their fourth set of attorneys) is shameful, and it absolutely will be addressed in court.”
Defending the pair, their lawyer said in a statement that Kruse and Fialko had been “accused of horrific acts” that weren’t backed by “any evidence whatsoever”.
“These accusations are especially painful given the amount of work they performed to keep the Presley family together during an extremely difficult and divisive period of time.”
The scandal
The pair claimed that Priscilla suddenly cut them off after they gave their help, while she claims that she felt tricked into investing into sham companies and forced into a “form of indentured servitude.”
Both Kruse and Fialko claim to have been helping Priscilla when she was in the midst of another legal battle – this time over the family estate, also triggered by Lisa Marie’s untimely death.
In Lisa Marie’s will was an amendment that removed Priscilla as co-trustee, which would have removed any influence she had over assets like the Graceland mansion, its archives, and Elvis Presley Enterprises, the company that oversees Elvis’s name.
It was an amendment Priscilla had never been informed about – and it threatened her entire livelihood.
Fortunately, the family were able to come to a generous settlement.
Priscilla received a $1 million lump-sum payment off the top of Lisa Marie’s $25 million life insurance policy, and her granddaughter became the sole trustee.
She also was awarded an annual salary of $100,000 for ten years, in return for being given the role of “special advisor” to the trust.
Riley later told Vanity Fair: “When my mom passed there was a lot of chaos in every respect of our lives.
“Everything felt like the carpet had been ripped out and the floor had melted from under us.
“Everyone was in a bit of a panic to understand how we move forward, and it took a minute to understand the details of the situation, because it was complicated.
“We are a family but there’s a huge business side to our family, so I think there was clarity that needed to be had, and clarity has been had.
“Things with grandma will be happy, they have never not been happy.
“She’s a beautiful woman and she was a huge part of creating my grandfather’s legacy in Graceland.”
But it wasn’t long until Graceland was once again at the centre of legal jeopardy.
The fight
Shortly after Lisa’s sudden death it seemed that the mansion – also home to Elvis’s final resting place – was about to be lost forever.
The home was put on the market by an investment firm that claimed Graceland was used as collateral for a £3million loan taken out by Lisa Marie in 2018 that was never repaid.
The mysterious investment firm, Naussany Investments, had no physical address and no working telephone number.
But that didn’t stop them from putting the treasured home, worth half a billion dollars, up for sale in a foreclosure auction in May 2024, unless the Presley family settle the £3million debt.
The furious family moved quickly to put a legal brake on the sale, dismissing Naussany’s claims as “fraudulent” and the signatures of Lisa Marie to be forgeries.
A Tennessee court agreed and halted the sale, and an investigation was launched over the authenticity of the documents.
The ringleader of the scam unveiled himself as Gregory Naussany, and claimed to be part of gang of Nigerian identity thieves, and in an email boasted of the attempt to sell off Graceland.
“We sit back and laugh at you idiots, and watch you make fools of yourselves. Come find us in Nigeria,” said the email, which was littered with grammatical errors, according to NBC news.
But even this was a scam, and the messages sent to news outlets around the US were eventually traced back to a 53-year-old woman called Lisa Findley, living in Missouri.
She pleaded guilty to carrying out the sophisticated fraud and in September 2025 was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
