Michael Edwards issued a statement Thursday denying claims made in Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir that he sexually abused the singer for several years beginning when she was 10.
“These claims are absolutely untrue. I never molested Lisa Marie and am shocked at the suggestion I did,” said Edwards, who was in a relationship with Lisa Marie’s mother Priscilla Presley at the time of the alleged abuse.
According to From Here to the Great Unknown, a memoir that Lisa Marie, daughter of Elvis Presley, was writing at the time of her death in 2023, Edwards allegedly entered her room in the middle of the night and said he was going to “teach me what was going to happen when I got older” before molesting her.
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Lisa Marie told her mother about what happened. Although Priscilla made Edwards apologize, the abuse allegedly continued, according to the book, which Lisa Marie’s daughter Riley Keough finished. Edwards began spanking Lisa Marie while telling her not to look at him—she assumed he was masturbating—and when she showed her mother the bruises, Priscilla asked her daughter, “Well what did you do to cause that?” Lisa Marie claimed.
In his 1988 book Elvis, Priscilla and Me, Edwards admitted that he “craved Lisa Marie sexually” when she was a teenager and described feeling “a wave of desire” when her bare knee accidentally brushed his hand at the dinner table, Page Six reported.
“I was encouraged to embellish a harmless anecdote about Lisa Marie in my memoir from the 1980s and now regret that I did,” Edwards said in his statement denying the abuse. “I understand that these stories sell books, but the notion that I molested Lisa Marie is just a fabrication.’’
Edwards’ daughter Carole Van Zandt also disputed the claims, saying in a statement that she was “close friends” with Lisa Marie throughout their parents’ relationship.
“I have kept many notes and letters from Lisa Marie during those years and she never stated or insinuated that my dad touched her inappropriately.“ Van Zandt said. “When she told me about my dad walking into her room, we then addressed and resolved the issue as a family.”
