Lisa Marie Presley Says Mom’s Boyfriend Sexually Abused Her as a Kid

In one of several shocking revelations in her posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley alleges that actor and model Michael Edwards — who dated her mother Priscilla in the late 1970s and early 1980s — sexually abused her as a child.

Presley was 10 years old when the first incident allegedly occurred. According to an excerpt quoted by People, Presley was sleeping when Edwards came into her room.

She writes that she "woke up to find him on his knees next to my bed, running his finger up my leg under the sheets, and if I moved, he stopped — so I moved."

She goes on to say that Edwards kissed and touched her that night, and that he told her he was "going to teach me what was going to happen when I got older" before he left her room.

The next day, she says, she told her mother what had happened. Priscilla later told Presley that Edwards wanted to apologize to her.

"Edwards was sitting on their bed looking very sullen and sulky. He said, 'I'm so sorry, but in Europe that's how they teach the kids, so that's what I was doing,'" Presley recounts. "I didn't know what to say. I would always feel bad for him when he apologized."

Despite that apology, Presley claims that he continued to behave inappropriately toward her sexually, and he also spanked her on several occasions, to the extent that she developed bruises. She adds that Edwards explained his behavior either by saying that he was drunk, or that Presley was "actually flirting" with him.

Presley also wrote that Edwards had a "horrible temper," and that he once threw a dining room chair and hit her in the back with it.

Read More: Riley Keough Says Mother Lisa Marie Presley 'Died of a Broken Heart'

From Here to the Great Unknown is the singer and actor's first-person account of her life, from her childhood days with father Elvis Presley to her struggles with opioid addiction and her grief after losing her son Benjamin to suicide in 2020.

• Presley's daughter Riley Keough co-authors the book.
• Keough agreed to help her mother write the book before Presley's death in early 2023. She finished writing it by listening to audio recordings of her late mother's memories.
• Keough also offers her own perspective, including her account of her mother's death.

Edwards, who is known for his role in the 1981 film Mommie Dearest, wrote about his relationship with Priscilla Presley in his 1988 book Priscilla, Elvis, and Me. In that book, he recalls feeling sexually attracted to Lisa Marie when she was a child. According to People, he described the feeling as "disturbing" and remembered having a "sick feeling" as he became aware of his attraction to her.

In 2003, Presley briefly spoke to Edwards' inappropriate behavior towards her, calling him "sick" in an interview with Playboy. "He made his attempts at coming into my room and being inappropriate while drunk," she said in that conversation.

• Lisa Marie Presley died on Jan. 12, 2023, at the age of 54.
• Her primary cause of death was ruled as a "sequeale of small bowel obstruction," and other "significant conditions" were noted as contributing factors, including a surgery she underwent years earlier.
• A toxicology report ruled out foul play, death by suicide or overdose.