Angry Presley insiders call leak of Lisa Marie’s emails to Sofia Coppola ‘deeply suspicious’
The leak of Lisa Marie Presley’s private emails have left insiders close to the Presley family and the Elvis Presley estate furious, Page Six is told.
“These emails obviously did not come from Lisa or anyone close to her, nor the Elvis estate,” said an Elvis estate insider. “The release of the emails before the wide release of this movie, which the projections show isn’t doing very well, is surely for publicity. It’s all deeply suspicious.”
Page Six previously revealed how Lisa Marie — who died at age 54 in January — was vehemently against Sofia Coppola’s new film, “Priscilla,” based on her mother Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me.”
Emails leaked to Variety Thursday show just how upset Lisa Marie was, calling the script “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous” — and how she feared the re-telling of her parents’ meeting when Elvis was 24 and Priscilla just 14.
She wrote that she failed to understand Coppola’s “need to attempt to take my father down on the heels of such an incredible film using the excuse that you are trying to tell my mother’s story, but from your very dark and jaded reality.”
The Elvis estate insider confirmed to Page Six that the emails are real and from Lisa Marie’s private email address, saying: “By making public a private email conversation between Lisa Marie and Sofia Coppola, it just goes to show the lengths that people will go to to prop up a failing movie.
Another source who knew Lisa Marie said: “Can you imagine how hurtful this is for Lisa’s children?”
She shared actress daughter Riley Keough, 34, and son Benjamin, who took his own life in 2020 at age 27, with ex Danny Keough. Lisa Marie also had twin daughters Harper and Finley, now 15, with ex-husband Michael Lockwood.
“Priscilla” was released Friday, and although it has had good reviews, the film — which was made for just under $20 million — was only slated to make between $2 million to $4 million its opening weekend.
Last week, Page Six reported that Priscilla, 78, kept her participation in Coppola’s film a secret from her daughter as well as Baz Luhrmann, the director of the hit 2022 movie “Elvis,” which Lisa Marie loved.
When Lisa Marie found out about “Priscilla” she warned her mom from joining the movie as a producer — and tried to stop Coppola from making the film, which stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis.
In messages sent just four months before her death, Lisa Marie wrote to Coppola: “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?
“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 added.
In response, Coppola’s rep sent her response to Lisa Marie, which read: “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.”
Page Six has reached out to Priscilla, Coppola and the Elvis Presley estate for comment.
Sources close to Coppola previously told Page Six that the director’s aim was to focus on how Priscilla and Elvis conducted their romance in the glare of the spotlight, saying that Lisa Marie had only seen a rough draft of the script.
However, Lisa Marie feared her mom would not understand how the romance would come across in 2023.
“I am worried that my mother isn’t seeing the nuance here or realizing the way in which Elvis will be perceived when this movie comes out,” Lisa Marie Presley wrote in her emails. “I feel protective over my mother who has spent her whole life elevating my father’s legacy.
“I am worried she doesn’t understand the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have.”
In a second note to Coppola. Lisa Marie said she had been forced to tell her daughter Harper hat “there is going to be a movie about her grandfather that is going to try to make him look really, really bad but it’s not true. I had to explain that her beloved grandmother is supporting it. These two little girls have been through so much in the past 7 years, enduring my divorce and horrific custody battle and then losing their brother. We’ve all been drowning,” Lisa Marie Presley wrote.
She praised Luhrman’s film as “a break from suffering and a ray of light … It made us all so proud because it was a true depiction of who [Elvis] really was.”
