After reading the script for Sofia Coppola’s latest film “Priscilla,” Lisa Marie Presley was convinced she was the devil in disguise.
A mere 4 months before the singer died of complications resulting from a small bowel obstruction, Presley sent two emails to the director begging her to revise the script for “Priscilla,” in accordance with Variety.
The bio-pic, which is predicated on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me,” focuses on the courtship between the infamous pair which began in Germany in 1959.
The problem? Priscilla was 14 and Elvis was 24.
“My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative,” Lisa Marie wrote in a September 2022 email. “As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father on 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?”
Lisa Marie also fearful that the film would put a strain on the connection between her and her mother and cause harm to Elvis’ grandchildren after the death of her son, Benjamin Keough in 2020, who died by suicide after reportedly affected by drug and alcohol abuse.
“I’m fearful that my mother isn’t seeing the nuance here or realizing the best way through which Elvis shall 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’m fearful she doesn’t understand the intentions behind this film or the end result it’ll have.”
The “Dirty Laundry” singer threatened to sentence the project and her mother who served as an Executive Producer on the A24 film.
“I shall be forced to be able where I can have to openly say how I feel concerning the film and go against you, my mother and this film publicly,” Presley wrote.
The Oscar-winning director sent her response to Lisa Marie to Variety. “I hope that while you see the ultimate film you’ll feel in a different way,” she wrote, “and understand I’m taking great care in honoring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity.”
In line with Page Six, Presley insiders stated Lisa Marie also had issue with the casting of the film which stars Cailee Spaen because the young Priscilla Beaulieu and Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley.
Standing at a mere 5’1″, Spaen is towered over by Elorrdi who’s 6’5″ and a full 5 inches taller than the true Elvis.
“The intent was surely to make them feel much more different than they were,” says an Elvis estate source: “Even right down to the casting, you’ve gotten this huge man and this tiny girl. It appears like any individual desired to grossly misrepresent Elvis and Priscilla and their relationship.”
Reps for Coppola, Priscilla Presley, and the “Priscilla” film studio, A24, didn’t immediately reply to the Latest York Post’s requests for comment.