Elvis' grandchildren taken into care

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Published Feb 18, 2017

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New York - The twin eight-year-old granddaughters of Elvis Presley have been taken into care by US social services, according to court papers filed by their mother.

Lisa Marie Presley also claims to have found hundreds of inappropriate pictures and videos on her fourth husband Michael Lockwood’s computer.

The claims emerged as part of Miss Presley’s bitter divorce battle with the guitarist after ten years of marriage.

Miss Presley – Elvis’s only child – also claims to have lost her £80million inheritance after allegedly being ripped off by Mr Lockwood and others. She says she is so broke that she even owes the British Government £4.2million in unpaid taxes for her £1.4million country estate in East Sussex.

In a court filing in the Los Angeles Superior Court – obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com – Miss Presley, 49, alleges she discovered ‘hundreds of inappropriate photos’ and ‘disturbing video footage and behaviour’ on Mr Lockwood’s computer.

She did not reveal details ‘out of respect for the privacy of my family’ and said she has provided copies to the court. But in the documents, she added she was ‘shocked and horrified and sick to my stomach’ at what she saw. The papers state there is an impending court case as a result of the discovery.

According to the court papers, Beverly Hills police raided Mr Lockwood’s home and took away 80 of his devices. Police in Tennessee, where the couple used to live, are also carrying out an investigation, according to the papers.

Miss Presley wrote: ‘I have no idea what else may be on those devices and fear that there are more and worse images and evidence in these un-analysed devices’.

She claims the incident amounts to ‘domestic violence’ as Mr Lockwood, 55, has destroyed her ‘mental or emotional calm’. In the court documents she writes that until the trial, their children Finley and Harper are ‘temporarily under the care of DCFS’, the LA Department of Children and Family Services.

Miss Presley – whose previous husbands include movie star Nicolas Cage and Michael Jackson – married Mr Lockwood in a £270,000 ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, in 2006. They separated last June.

The couple had a postnuptial agreement under which all Elvis Presley’s money would go to his daughter. But now Mr Lockwood is said to be demanding £32,000 a month in spousal support and £80,000 towards his legal costs, claiming he was coerced into signing the agreement.

In the court papers, he claims Miss Presley was worth more than the £50million she said she was when they signed the document.

But Miss Presley is pleading poverty and claims she owes £5.8million in unpaid taxes, the bulk of which is the £4.2million on her 50-acre farm near Rotherfield. She says Coes Hall, her 15th century manor home, ‘is no longer an asset.’

She claims she receives £80,000 a month from the trust her father set up for her before his death in 1977 but lives an unglamorous life a world away from what she is used to. Miss Presley – whose mother Priscilla was recently reported to be romantically linked with Sir Tom Jones – is paid £3,500 a month from a job she keeps at Graceland, her father’s home in Memphis that is now a tourist attraction, but says this is for health insurance purposes.

She said she has had to move in with her actress daughter Riley Keough, who starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, and has been forced to borrow money from friends to pay off her debts.

Lawyers for Mr Lockwood did not return requests for comment. Miss Presley’s lawyer Mark Gross declined to discuss the case.

DAILY MAIL

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