Lisa Marie Presley
Marie Claire Australia|April 2023
She had the attention of the world before she was even born, and she spent a lifetime in the spotlight. With her death in January, Cameron Adams charts the highs and lows of Elvis and Priscilla's daughter
By Cameron Adams
Lisa Marie Presley

There was not one single moment in her entire life when Lisa Marie Presley was not globally famous. Born on February 1, 1968 – nine months to the day after her father, Elvis, married her mother, Priscilla – she not only inherited his fame and fortune but also those lips that helped make him possibly the most successful singer of all time.

When her father died in 1977, the world became even more fascinated with Lisa Marie. Would she carry on his legacy? Did she also inherit the voice? She was nine years old.

Elvis lived a fantasy life fuelled by enormous wealth. After he and Priscilla divorced, he spoilt their daughter rotten with kid-sized fur coats, a pony, theme parks shut down to everyone but her, and even a private jet (christened Lisa Marie) to fly her to play in the snowfields. The King introduced his baby girl to his anything-goes world, and that included a nocturnal schedule of staying up all night, sleeping all day.

Credit goes to Lisa Marie’s far stricter mother. Priscilla set rules, even though Elvis ignored them, and she tried to protect their young daughter from the glare of publicity. But Lisa Marie didn’t miss out on any of the perks of her A-list gene pool. She’d see the band Queen at the end of the ’70s as a youngster and was given an audience with Freddie Mercury backstage, where she gifted the Elvis fan one of her late father’s scarves.

This story is from the April 2023 edition of Marie Claire Australia.

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This story is from the April 2023 edition of Marie Claire Australia.

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