(14 Aug 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vienna – 7 February 2024
1. Wide of Priscilla Presley and Richard Lugner arriving for press conference as lights go out
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Priscilla Presley:
“This is the first time of course I’ve been here. He has shown me the sights, made me feel comfortable here. The hotel is wonderful. I have no complaints whatsoever. I wish I could stay and see more because everyone – the people here – have been incredibly nice and welcoming.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Los Angeles – 15 January 2015
3. Priscilla Presley and Riley Keough
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Venice – 4 September 2023
4. Medium shot Sofia Coppola, Priscilla Presley, Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi pose for photographers at premiere
5. Various shots Priscilla Presley posing for photographers
STORYLINE:
Priscilla Presley’s former business partners have filed a lawsuit seeking more than $50 million in damages, alleging fraud and breach of contract.
Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko filed the lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Among many other allegations, they say Presley used them to financially exploit her name, image and likeness, hiding the fact that she had sold those rights decades earlier.
The lawsuit comes just over a year after Presley, the 80-year-old former wife of Elvis Presley, sued Kruse and Fialko, alleging they engaged in elder abuse in a “meticulously planned and abhorrent 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 (personally and financially), while their real goal was to drain her of every last penny she had.”
Kruse and Fialko’s lawyer, Jordan Matthews, said in a statement Wednesday that the “evidence will establish that the real victims here are my clients, who invested millions and years of hard work into revitalizing Priscilla Presley’s brand, only to be betrayed and falsely accused once the money was on the table and every personal and business issue had been resolved.”
An email seeking comment from Presley’s lawyer was not immediately answered.
Kruse and Fialko’s lawsuit says Kruse is a well-known auctioneer and Fialko a successful entrepreneur, both of whom dealt in Elvis Presley memorabilia. The duo previously sued Priscilla Presley in Florida.
They say she approached them in 2021 looking for help to save her from financial ruin, which they spent thousands of hours working to do.
“Kruse and Fialko deployed IP, know-how and creative marketing to enhance Priscilla’s brand,” the lawsuit said, and formed several companies to exploit her name, image and likeness.
But they say as this was happening, Presley hid from them that she had sold the rights to license her name as part of a $6.5 million deal with Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2005.
The lawsuit says that when confronted about the previous agreement, Presley repeatedly denied making it, and later said she had forgotten about it when confronted with evidence of it.
The lawsuit also alleges Presley sought to take advantage of the 2023 death of her daughter and Elvis Presley’s heir, Lisa Marie Presley, to aggrandize herself and regain a stake in the Elvis’ estate.
Priscilla and Elvis Presley were married from 1967 to 1973, divorcing four years before the death of the rock ‘n’ roll legend.
Kruse and Fialko say they brokered a 2023 deal to end a legal fight over the estate between Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter, actor Riley Keough, getting Priscilla Presley $2.4 million.
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