After reading the script for Sofia Coppola’s new film “Priscilla,” Lisa Marie Presley was convinced she was the devil in disguise.
A mere four 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,” according to Variety.
The bio-pic, which is based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me,” focuses on the courtship between the infamous pair which began in Germany in 1959.
The issue? 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 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?”
Lisa Marie also worried that the film would put a strain on the relationship 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 suffering from drug and alcohol abuse.
“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.”
The “Dirty Laundry” singer threatened to condemn the project and her mother who served as an Executive Producer on the A24 film.
“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.
The Oscar-winning director sent her response to Lisa Marie to Variety. “I hope that when you see the final film you will feel differently,” she wrote, “and understand I’m taking great care in honoring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity.”
According to Page Six, Presley insiders stated Lisa Marie also had issue with the casting of the film which stars Cailee Spaen as the young Priscilla Beaulieu and Jacob Elordi as Elvis Presley.
Standing at a mere 5’1″, Spaen is towered over by Elorrdi who is 6’5″ and a full 5 inches taller than the real Elvis.
“The intent was surely to make them feel even more different than they were,” says an Elvis estate source: “Even down to the casting, you have this huge man and this tiny girl. It feels like somebody wanted to grossly misrepresent Elvis and Priscilla and their relationship.”
Reps for Coppola, Priscilla Presley, and the “Priscilla” film studio, A24, did not immediately respond to the New York Post’s requests for comment.