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Last week, a “source” from the Elvis Presley Estate told Page Six that Lisa Marie Presley hated the script for Sofia Coppola’s movie Priscilla. And now, shortly after the film was released in theaters in the US, Variety has an exclusive from someone with access to Lisa Marie Presley’s emails. (That’s a mystery I’d like to untangle: who is leaking this to Variety?) Lisa Marie sent two super angry emails to Sofia Coppola in September 2022, shortly before production began. She called the script “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous” and said her father “only comes across as a predator and manipulative.” She also threatened to publicly speak out against the movie, her own mom, and Sofia.
The movie is based solely on Priscilla’s memoir, Elvis and Me, and reportedly some parts of Elvis’ courtship of Priscilla (which started when he was 24 and she was 14) were toned down for the movie. Sofia responded very graciously judging by the email that her representative provided to Variety when asked for comment. Sofia wrote back to Lisa Marie that she was “honoring” Priscilla while presenting Elvis with “sensitivity and complexity.”
Before her death earlier this year, Lisa Marie Presley expressed shock and horror over the depiction of her father Elvis Presley in the script for Sofia Coppola’s new film “Priscilla.” Described in two emails obtained exclusively by Variety, the late Presley asked Coppola to reconsider her vision for the character and to spare her family public embarrassment. The messages were sent four months before Presley suffered fatal cardiac arrest in January.
Presley’s messages called the script “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous,” and contained pleas to Oscar-winning director Coppola to refrain from straining her fragile relationship with her mother – the film’s subject, Priscilla Presley – as well as bringing scrutiny on Elvis’ living grandchildren as they continue to grieve the loss of Lisa Marie Presley’s son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020.
“Priscilla” is a biopic of Priscilla Presley, based on the subject’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me.” It has sparked conversation among critics and audiences for its portrait of Elvis and Priscilla’s courtship – one that began in Germany in 1959 when Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24.
“My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative. As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?” Presley wrote in one of her messages. Both were sent in September of last year, roughly four hours apart.
While Coppola had yet to roll cameras on “Priscilla” when Presley reached out, the latter told her bluntly that she would speak out against the project and her mother, who is credited as an executive producer and has participated in publicity for the A24 release. Already an awards season contender, the movie opened in limited release on Oct. 27 and expands wide on Friday.
“I will be forced to be in a position where I will have to openly say how I feel about the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly,” Presley wrote.
When asked for comment on the exchange, Coppola responded through her representative with words she expressed to Presley in response to her September emails, saying it encapsulates what the director intended to do with her film.
“I hope that when you see the final film you will feel differently, and understand I’m taking great care in honoring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity,” wrote Coppola.
First of all, of course the script for this movie would be sensitive and difficult for Lisa Marie in a way it wouldn’t be for anyone else in the entire world. If your dad groomed your mom (there’s no way around it–that is what happened), and someone is going to make a movie where that truth is acknowledged, it would feel shameful. At least, if I were Lisa Marie, I would feel ashamed. It’s her dad. We often idolize our fathers, and hers was “The King.” The predatory nature of her father’s courtship with her mom–that would have been such a grenade rolling around in Lisa Marie’s psyche, just waiting to be set off. Because coming to terms with the fact that your dad abused your mom, it isn’t easy. My parents’ relationship wasn’t that bad by any means, but it was still bad, and children absorb all of that subconsciously. Poison spreads in families. It creates a huge amount of cognitive dissonance, to both love someone and be ashamed of them. Judging from these emails, Lisa Marie chose to deny the truth of what her father did. Sometimes people just can’t face these things. I haven’t seen Priscilla yet, I’m going next Tuesday when it becomes available at the independent art house theater in my town. But every review I’ve read has praised it as sensitive and intelligent. Nobody has said “this is a hack job on Elvis.” Lisa Marie just attacked Sofia because reading the truth of her parents’ courtship touched an incredibly tender nerve.
Wasn’t Lisa Marie like nine years old or so when Elvis died? I remember at nine years old I thought my father had hung the moon and by the time I was in my 20s I was able to see him in a more nuanced way. A lot of her recollections are through the lens of a child because sadly, she never had the opportunity to relate to her father on an adult level. I wonder if that also had something to do with her reaction to reading the script.
I thought that too. she was honestly too young when he died to have a real grasp on her dad as a complex individual. and then everyone has gone above and beyond in their praise for him since.
unfortunately for her, he was predatory and manipulative. he was a famous 24 year old who manipulated Priscilla and her parents when she was just barely a teenager. he then proceeded to cheat on her numerous times. I’m sure he was many other things too, including potentially a good father. people contain multitudes.
There’s the complexity around Lisa Marie idolizing her father as the parent who died when she was so young and who the people around her worshiped as a talent who died too young. And there’s also the complexity around her relationship with her mother, which seems to have been strained enough around this time that she removed Priscilla as the executor of her estate. If Lisa Marie was in a period where she did not fully trust Priscilla, it could have been difficult to separate the truth of what happened to Priscilla with Elvis from the truth Lisa Marie’s experience of Priscilla as a mother.
Elvis and Priscilla had also divorced before he died. So she wasn’t with him that much at all. I doubt she remembers much about him herself. I would imagine that most of what she thought she remembered was things other people told her.
The actors can’t promote the film so I guess leaking Lisa Marie’s emails is the best way to bring attention to the film. I get where Lisa was coming from she didn’t want people thinking that her father was a groomer plus she was probably unhappy that Priscilla was going back to the well. Elvis and Me was made into a TV movie in the 90s.
Good point about hyping the movie, Amy Bee.
Duh. Thank you for pointing this out, it never occurred to me. I bet you are right, Amy Bee.
In this case they can promote the film. They got SAG approved promotion because it is an independent movie that complies with every guideline.
Jacob, Sofia and Cailee have been promoting the film since the Venice Film Festival where she won best Actress. Elordi has been doing the talkshow circuit: Fallon, Clarkson and others.
Well said, Immaculate Misconception and Arizona. I’d just like to add that Elvis’ relationship with his daughter was easily different than that with his ex-wife. Abusers are capable of treating some people well and abusing others in their lives. That can be very tricky for the ones who aren’t abused to see.
This is why people will seal their letters, memoirs, etc 100 years after their death—so everyone who would get hurt is dead. I love Coppola, but hopefully she appreciates that there are real-life consequences here. She shouldn’t compromise her artistic vision, of course, but Lisa Marie must have genuinely been shocked and hurt.
I get what you’re saying, Shawna, but this movie is about Priscilla more so than Elvis. There should be room for her perspective and she shouldn’t need to mitigate her story for a popular dead guy.
My point was just that Coppola should have expected some pushback from people who were in his circle during those years. Not that she shouldn’t have done what she wanted.
People said the same thing about Spare – that Harry was hurting real people. While the specifics of his and Priscilla’s journey are vastly different, she worked closely on this and has an equal right to tell her own story. Elvis’s actions are not Sofia’s fault.
I can understand Lisa Marie being hurt but all it says to me is that Elvis did exactly what many manipulators do – presented himself differently to his child for many reasons, and Priscilla did exactly what many mothers do – protect their children from (the mother’s) reality when it is potentially too hurtful.
I just meant that it was inevitable, not that Coppola should have made other decisions.
I’ve been listening to the audibook of “Elvis & Me”…and thus far…I’m up to Priscilla at age 18…and ALL it’s been since she was 14…is Priscilla being set up to be a doll for Elvis to gaslight…ignore & manipulate…it’s sad…but we knew THAT already
Thanks for the tip, I just checked that out of my library.
I am looking forward to see this movie, and i think that for Lisa Marie suddenly seeing things in a different light must have been brutal.
Rip.
I’m so glad this movie is coming out, esp after last year’s Elvis. I’m going to see it with my daughter tomorrow night and I understand that Sofia really does handle the grooming very, very lightly, but it needs to be in there – we cannot forget what Elvis did to Priscilla. And it should be a part of a bigger conversation too about how so many of the rock and roll stars Boomers love creeped on underage girls. I understand why Lisa Marie never wanted to deal with this reality but that makes me sad for Priscilla – her daughter could never see how she’d been traumatized. I’m sure that would absolutely impact their relationship.
Millennial child here. Grew up to the stones, Eric Clapton, jj kale, Bowie- you name it, we listened to it.
Finding out that the “groupies” were actually children was beyond horrifying.
This is an occupational hazard of biopics. Someone will end up hurt and relationships will be strained. I think Coppola knew all that going in.
To move toward a healthy mind or emotional equilibrium – we absolutely have to accept the truth, as much as we can know, about our parents. This doesn’t mean closure but to stop believing in the fantasy that our parents were and are perfect. It seems like Lisa Marie couldn’t reach that.
I just spoke to someone who reminded me that Lisa Marie Presley looked a lot like Elvis when she was young. Their perspective was that LMP probably identified more with her dad than her mother, and that’s part of why Sofia Coppola’s movie was so upsetting to her.
I feel bad for her, having it writen down must have set her off, and this happening so close to her death makes it worse. Her mom was sold like cattle to Elvis and the truth is nasty, but it is what it is. I know most people will say it was a different time (my mom’s cousin was married off at 15 to a man who was 22-25) but Priscilla’s parents were also part of the problem. Who TF sends their minor daughter to another country to live with an adult man? Of course they forced the marriage on them.
I’m wondering if Lisa read her mom’s memoir, or if she just read the script based on it.
Having recently read “Elvis and Me”, it cha he’s my perspective of Elvis and Priscilla. She was groomed for years and it took her many years to get away from him and become her own person.
It’s not flattering to her dad but it’s her mom’s truth and I find it a little sad she didn’t even seem to consider that in her disapproval of the script.
exactly. I haven’t read elvis and me, but have read and heard about it, and how elvis is depicted in it, and am wondering how could she have been surprised? Ugh, I don’t see how anyone could have heard the story and not been disturbed
I get that she wants to protect her father’s image but everybody already knew that he was 24 and Piscilla 14 when they met, it’s just a fact. The way she brings in her youngest daughters is very strange as well because you end up wondering what she told them about Elvis ? I know they’re young and she probably never told them about the age difference between their grand-parents when they first met but they are bound to learn about it at one point or another and make their own opinion.
This letter really shines a different light for me on the ‘feud’ between Lisa Marie & Priscilla and the will, estate, etc. If Lisa Marie idolized her father & had a difficult time accepting/understanding Priscilla’s complicated relationship with Elvis, I can better see how she’d maybe want to cut Priscilla out of the estate. And, the more I learn about Priscilla & Elvis’ relationship (and how she rebuilt his ‘brand’), I can better understand why she likely felt she still deserved a piece of the pie.
My parents were teens/early 20s during the 1950s but neither of them were Elvis fans (my mum in particular thought he was a massively overrated white man who stole black music) so I’ve never completely understood the whole ‘Man, Myth, Legend’ stuff. So, I’ve always thought he was pretty gross, and am more interested in this version than the Baz Luhrman film that chose to gloss over how problematic Elvis’s relationship was w/Priscilla.
None of us would be talking about this if Elvis hadn’t been a rich and famous White man. (None of us would be as interested in the story, in the first place.) The attention, consideration, and care afforded to the elite is a significant part of this whole thing.
Well, yeah. Elvis was a rich white male who became famous off Black music. And the glamorization of his personal life has made a lot of people pretend that how he treated Priscilla was normal and acceptable for not just celebrities but everyday people.