Priscilla Presley’s former enterprise companions have filed a lawsuit searching for greater than $50 million in damages, alleging fraud and breach of contract.
Brigitte Kruse and Kevin Fialko filed the lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom. Amongst many different allegations, they are saying Presley used them to financially exploit her identify, picture and likeness, hiding the truth that she had bought these rights many years earlier.
The lawsuit comes simply over a 12 months after Presley, the 80-year-old former spouse 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, mentioned in an announcement 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 electronic mail searching for remark from Presley’s lawyer was not instantly answered.
Kruse and Fialko’s lawsuit says Kruse is a widely known auctioneer and Fialko a profitable entrepreneur, each of whom dealt in Elvis Presley memorabilia. The duo beforehand sued Priscilla Presley in Florida.
They are saying she approached them in 2021 on the lookout for assist to avoid wasting her from monetary spoil, which they spent 1000’s of hours working to do.
“Kruse and Fialko deployed IP, know-how and creative marketing to enhance Priscilla’s brand,” the lawsuit mentioned, and fashioned a number of corporations to take advantage of her identify, picture and likeness.
However they are saying as this was taking place, Presley hid from them that she had bought the rights to license her identify as a part of a $6.5 million cope with Elvis Presley Enterprises in 2005.
The lawsuit says that when confronted concerning the earlier settlement, Presley repeatedly denied making it, and later mentioned she had forgotten about it when confronted with proof of it.
The lawsuit additionally alleges Presley sought to reap the benefits of the 2023 dying of her daughter and Elvis Presley’s inheritor, Lisa Marie Presley, to aggrandize herself and regain a stake within the Elvis’ property.
Priscilla and Elvis Presley had been married from 1967 to 1973, divorcing 4 years earlier than the dying of the rock ‘n’ roll legend.
Kruse and Fialko say they brokered a 2023 deal to finish a authorized struggle over the property between Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley’s daughter, actor Riley Keough, getting Priscilla Presley $2.4 million.
However the lawsuit says she reduce them off in violation of contracts quickly after, publicly smeared them and later sued them.
Priscilla Presley’s lawsuit says that Kruse and Fialko fraudulently satisfied her they had been important to her recovering financially, and that her former trusted advisers had been dishonest her.
It mentioned they compelled her to participate in sham corporations, misplaced management of her identify, picture and likeness, and compelled her into “a form of indentured servitude.”
“By isolating her and immersing themselves in each facet of her life, the Defendants had been capable of fraudulently induce Presley into giving them energy of legal professional, management over her household and private trusts, and management over her financial institution accounts,” the lawsuit mentioned.
Priscilla grew to become a significant public determine when she was an adolescent due to her relationship with one of many world’s most well-known males.
She by no means left the general public eye, however she has regained a particular prominence lately via Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 movie “Elvis” and Sofia Coppola’s 2023 movie “Priscilla,” based mostly on her memoir.
She can also be an actor who starred within the unique “Naked Gun” franchise within the Eighties and Nineties, and he or she had a cameo within the new reboot.
