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joons · 3 months

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This may be a prickly subject, and I'm sorry if so. But I'm trying to learn more about Elvis, and every time I bring him up to people I know, they try to tell me he was this terrible person, and point me toward Priscilla's book, the movie made on it, and the discourse. Idk if you've talked about it on here (I tried searching your blog but couldn't find anything on it). If you're willing, I'd love to hear your take on it so I can see a more nuanced view.

The film Priscilla was greenlit roughly a month after Priscilla herself was informed that she was close to becoming financially insolvent in 2022. With a business partner, Brigitte Kruse, who allegedly helped broker the film deal, she established a limited liability company called Priscilla Presley Partners that was supposed to use her image and likeness to create several lines of merchandise to coincide with the film's release. That business partner is now suing Priscilla because she did not have the rights to her image or likeness, or any ability to use the Presley name, because she had already sold all of those rights and was no longer considered in good standing with Graceland or Elvis Presley Enterprises. The entire business deal, then, according to the lawsuit, was built on her misrepresentation of how much her image was worth.

The deal between the two of them fell apart after Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter and Priscilla's granddaughter, settled with Priscilla to give her a lump sum of $1 million from Lisa Marie's estate and yearly amounts of $100,000. Priscilla sued very shortly after Lisa Marie's death because she thought Lisa Marie's signature on a will had been forged because Priscilla was not included in it. All of the assets were supposed to go directly to Lisa Marie's son, Benjamin Keough, who died in 2020, and her three daughters, two of whom are still teenagers. Now, part of those assets have been claimed by Priscilla and her other son, Navarone, who has no connection to the Presley family and has stated he is glad Lisa died.

Four months before Lisa's death, Lisa wrote to Sofia Coppola and made it clear she had strong concerns about the Priscilla film and was suspicious of the intentions behind it:

"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 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."

Lisa was enormously grateful for efforts put into 2022's Elvis to find her father's soul and to restore his dignity in a world that often turns him and his family into a joke:

"You can feel and witness Baz’s pure love, care, and respect for my father throughout this beautiful film, and it is finally something that myself and my children and their children can be proud of forever."

It is such a strong and powerful statement, to see how much Lisa valued family, not just her father but her own children and their legacy, and how willing she was to speak up no matter what was going on in her personal life to say what was right. On this and many other things, Lisa and Priscilla's values have rarely been in alignment. A friend and EPE business associate, Joel Weinshanker, said of her, "Lisa couldn't be bought, she couldn't be pushed. If she felt that something wasn't in Elvis' best interest, it was never about money. And she really is the only Presley that you could say that about."

Priscilla, though, has adjusted her stories about her time with Elvis almost every time she discusses it. For a quick example, she said in her book, which was released in 1985, that Elvis insisted she do her hair and makeup a certain way, that he had control over her look and would get upset if she didn't dress how he wanted. But in an interview with Ladies' Home Journal in 1973, she said that she made a deliberate choice to attend makeup school so that she could learn how to style herself, and that it was her idea to wear big, black hair and big, black eyeliner. She said she was embarrassed for going overboard. She said, "I wish that Elvis had said something, but he must have liked it because he never commented." This lines up with recollections from Patti Parry, a platonic friend of Elvis' and a hairstylist, who said Priscilla always wanted Patti to do her hair in a "big boombah," but that Priscilla would then get upset when Elvis didn't notice or didn't like it.

These changes are impossible not to notice if you follow her for any length of time. At the film premiere, she said it felt just like watching her life and said she was consulted on everything, since she was an executive producer. After the film came out, she said she couldn't understand why Coppola had changed so much about the story and misrepresented events. In the '70s, she said she and Elvis lived almost totally separate lives, that she came and went as she pleased, and that she loved this freedom. Later, she said she felt completely stifled and trapped and never left the house, even though she had friends she went out with all the time. In 2019, she tweeted a forceful denial about a National Enquirer story: "This is the Enquirer folks... please don't believe everything you read. ... Never planned on being buried next to Elvis. What will they come up with next?" But part of her settlement demands in her lawsuit against Riley in 2023 asked "to be buried next to Elvis." This year, she said in two separate interviews that Lisa was with her when Elvis died and that Priscilla had to break the news to her, despite the fact that Lisa was at Graceland when it happened. She has said she gave Elvis the idea to wear belts on his jumpsuits, to have a lightning bolt as his logo, to sing "An American Trilogy," though none of that is true. She retells the story about forcing Elvis to burn all of his spiritual books to prove he loved her as an almost funny anecdote about debrainwashing him, while Elvis later said it was the worst thing he ever agreed to, a desperate attempt to make her happy by giving up the things he valued the most. (For the record, this is my opinion about their relationship on both sides: thinking they could change themselves and each other to make it work. It never did.)

Every secondhand Elvis account has to be treated lightly and only valued for its consistency with known facts and other witnesses. I try to give enormous benefit of the doubt to anyone in the Elvis world because they often only have partial knowledge of what Elvis may have been thinking at any given time, and there are numerous examples of people who were taken advantage of by unscrupulous journalists who changed the story they wanted to tell. But Priscilla's stories sometimes are not even consistent with her own statements, which makes them very poor options indeed to base anything on. However careful we are about noting potential biases and inaccuracies in other memoirs, we have to be triply, quadruply careful with anything in which Priscilla involves herself because she has a vested interest in generating discourse today in order to make money. Unfortunately, Priscilla has a habit of stifling other accounts or making sensationalized statements each time there is a possibility that she will lose some of the cachet that comes with being an Elvis Source—after Elvis' death, when she believed she was going to inherit his airplane and disinvited everyone that Vernon said could fly in it to his funeral; when she sued the parents of one of Elvis' ex-girlfriends after he died because he had allowed them to live rent-free in a house he bought for them; when she claimed that Elvis wanted to reunite with her before his death, despite the fact that he was engaged to someone else and told many people he couldn't see a reunion ever happening with her; before Vernon's death, when she convinced him to make her an executor of the Presley estate until Lisa came of age; after Lisa came of age, when she convinced Lisa to let her stay on as partner; when Lisa accused Priscilla of misspending Lisa's money, during which time anonymous sources cropped up to say Lisa was in debt and drug-addled; when Priscilla was removed from her position as an EPE spokesperson but kept collecting $900,000 a year from the company; when Lisa died, and Priscilla sued once she learned she wasn't in the will; when Priscilla was no longer associated with EPE and decided to do another adaptation of a book that she has since recanted parts of and has contradicted before and after its release.

When Priscilla thinks there is a threat to her image and position, she does new interviews and projects to muddy the waters and stir public interest, whether it is true or false, positive or negative, laudatory or defamatory. She gets corrected by Elvis' surviving family members, girlfriends, friends, and fans, but these stories do not get the same reach no matter how much they are backed by contemporaneous documents and witnesses, or how many resources there are to educate the public on how Elvis' and Priscilla's attitudes about marriage and relationships changed—along with the rest of society—between 1960 and 1970.

I think almost any single-source project is not going to advance our understanding of Elvis in any way because no one individual can speak for him, and we are kind of obligated to include all the context we can in order to appreciate his character, his successes and failures, flaws and virtues—and to treat both himself and those around him as fully three-dimensional people who have their own blind spots. Priscilla is far too aware of her own image, and far too willing to change it to suit the audience, to be particularly valuable here.

She is next scheduled to appear at the Lexington (Kentucky) Comic & Toy Con.

#please know that for each of these stories i have tried to see things from her perspective #and then something happens again #and again and again #so i have simply stopped trying and accepted that i don't like her or find her credible as far as these things go #i don't imagine i should be privy to all their family drama so of course some of this may change over time #but there are far far far better sources for learning about elvis!#an easy gateway would be ashley's adventures and elvis fans matter on youtube!#ashley does a lot of fun documentation of graceland and efm is the family channel of billy and jo smith #they are elvis' cousin and his wife who were with elvis a lot and they have good human stories #same caveat goes for them: they might not know everything #but i just like the format better than books

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throwawayaccount3482348873289 · 5 months

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Response

Thank you to Jade/Lolthia @/edens-gemstone for replying to the previous post. I will make an exception in replying as yes, there was a part I forgot to add, which is additional evidence to prove that all your accusations in the comments below are completely false. Allow me to address them one by one.

At the end, I will include some follow-up questions to add additional context for other users.

THE ACCUSATIONS

“Also you literally stalked my tumblr after this, rb posts about Adam that I wasn’t comfy being rb and possibly sent me harassing anons (idk for sure)”

I do not have a Tumblr. This account is made by someone else, posting on my behalf. But if you really are confident that it’s me reblogging these posts and sending harassing anons, post the blog and the anons. If you don’t know for sure, why did you post this?

“You literally just… didn’t want me included because I wouldn't let you ship your OC with Ibara.”

As seen here, this claim is completely false. I explicitly mentioned that I had no problems with the pairing, but asked them to let me know prior next time to ensure the RP is consistent. I may have vaguely talked about an original story I was writing with my OC and Ibara outside of RP, but within the context of the RP, I have clearly stated that I was fine with the direction Lolthia wanted.

None of what they had mentioned was communicated to me at all before the start of the RP. They didn’t even acknowledge what I said, just responding with ‘well I figured it would be obvious’.

Lolthia’s behaviour here is consistent with their stated intention in the previous post: to RP not because they want to collaborate, but because they want other writers to expend time and effort to fulfil their self-ship fantasies, without giving as much in return. Therefore, they didn’t bother giving context, let alone asking if their RP partners were okay with it.

“You even stopped our RP after getting mad about me dating Ibara.”

Lolthia stopped the RP themselves after I confronted them for ranting on their public blog about a communication issue they were unhappy with in this server.

Someone alerted me that they were talking about their RP server on their blog. I was concerned about those in the server who were on Tumblr. As their RP partner, I requested that they delete it and talk to us first in the future. We then had the following conversation.

The conversation ended with this rude remark and Lolthia proceeded to be inactive for a long time before starting the argument in the previous post.

“I got tired of constant pings asking me for stuff”/ “I… asked to stop being pinged because I was going through enough”

I need you to understand that you are the admin of the server. We needed your help to create threads to hold our RPs in. Instead of not saying anything when we pinged you only to throw a tantrum about it, why didn’t you pass the permissions or moderator roles to someone else, or at least notify us that you’d be inactive for a certain amount of time?

In the post where we were planning an RP and pinged you - If your interpretation of ‘maybe they can come in later to keep the narrative consistent’ is us excluding you, that’s honestly a you problem, mate.

TO LOLTHIA/JADE

Only one of the claims you have made against me is correct. Yes - presently, I do not like you. But it’s not because you are whatever you identify as, or that you ship with a specific character.

I do not like you because you vagued your own server members, including myself, on your public blog. When I found out and asked you to edit out the mention of our server at minimum, you still had the gall to try to convince me it didn’t affect anyone but yourself.

I do not like you for insulting my friends and I as writers by saying we were ‘just an alternative to character.AI’ all along. And as people, by comparing us to the hate anons who had sent you death threats when we did nothing of the sort. Then, twisting the above into these accusations, without a shred of proof to go with them.

I am a ROLEPLAYER. Ibara to me is no more than a character and piece of intellectual property.

You:

Explicitly conveyed that your position was to use us to help you get validation for your alleged ‘relationships’ in a similar way to Character.AI.

Took out your jealousy towards other fandom members onto us, even getting emotional when we merely talked about and shared screenshots of characters you liked.

When we didn’t give you attention to your liking, accused us of ostracising you and wanting you dead.

Threw a tantrum at us for pinging you for basic admin duties as the server owner, because it wasn’t attention or praise.

The only irrational one here is not myself, but you, and the hard evidence in these two posts is overwhelming.

I won’t be entertaining any further responses. Please be reminded that any attempt to post my personal information publicly will be met with action by me.

TO OTHER USERS

Q: Did you make both these posts and the document?

No, these posts are follow-ups to the document containing evidence, made by a different person.

Q: Why did you feel the need to engage them rather than leave the server?

We had already talked only amongst ourselves, ignored any vents they had and began our own server long before these events.

Engaging them was at first a personal choice to defend my friends, who had done nothing wrong. At the time, I was not aware that this was common behaviour for them.

The comparison between us and the death threat anons, which could affect my friends’ reputations, was the most compelling reason for me to attempt straightening this out.

Q: Why has this post been made almost a year later?

Yes, I do agree that from the looks of it, Lolthia’s actions are old news. After I was informed, I personally did not want anything to do with them, and decided to let it go.

However, recently, my friends in the same fandom spaces have not had the luxury of curating their own online experiences because according to them, they are constantly remaking blogs. Furthermore, it was not easy for them to work up the courage to make this post, as being wrongfully accused of wanting someone’s death is not easy for anyone. So, I decided to back them up with the hard evidence they lacked.

Thank you for reading.

#ok to reblog #ok to rb #I may as well also say something in the tags (I am the one posting on someone else's behalf):#I myself hope this is the last post made on here as well. There is nothing more to add honestly.#This is honestly getting tiring. I know you will read this Jade one way or another. You will come across it.#If you have evidence for the contrary and can prove that you are in the right please do so (I already know you can't).#You will claim to be 'harrassed' but that is not our intention (anyone sending you harrassment or threats is not behavior we tolerate).#(Also no we are sending no one after you nor 'stalk your blog'. Don't act as if we don't have anything better to do... Because we do)#Let me tell you a secret Jade: You are NOT important. We only had enough of your behavior online since it does not change. At all.#It affects others - It affected us and it is affecting the communities you are in as well as a good portion of their members.#Please let it go already. But you can't. Because... As you said yourself 'Any attention is good attention'.#And some of your current mutuals will try to say 'it adds fuel to the fire'. This is not the intention in any way.#The only intention is to document Jade's online behavior and warn others. Because they have already gone too far.#This is to document and prove that they are no different no matter where they go. We only want to spread awareness.#It is not just me and the other person who are sick of it. Many others are sick of it as well. We want it to stop.#Their actions affect others nowadays as well. Only last month there was yet another incident heavily affecting another person.#Why? Because Jade thought it was necessary to make a 'callout post'. Even though the situation was long over.#This should have been long over and everyone involved is trying to move on. But you Jade make it impossible. This has gone on far enough.#Not to mention having been exposed to your drama and graphic vents (which at least sound suicide baity) have also stressed me out.#I kept out of the drama but it was affecting my mental state as well. All because you manage to land yourself into so many controversies.#I moved blogs because I had enough of your shit. Seeing it day in and out does a lot to a person.#'But no one cares about me' - We do not wish you ill (that is the truth) but this has to stop somehow. You are not the victim here.#It's always others but honestly... Given how much shit you got yourself into maybe you are to blame. This isn't normal after all.#Maybe ask yourself what you are doing wrong. But you won't. You never will. You will paint us as 'the bad ones' here.#That's the only thing you know how to do. You cannot owe up to anything and you are proving it time and time again. Even now.#Why do you get defensive now and not when the document dropped? Because there is solid evidence for your bullshit. That's why. You know it.#Deleting because you will throw a temper tantrum? No. Forget it. But again if you have proof for your claims come forward.#To me personally if you wish. But beware: This is not the first time I have dealt with this bullshit. I know this behavior all too well.#You are pulling bullshit I have already seen. My advice is to just log off already and sort your problems out.#This is not the first time I dealt with your type. You show the pattern I honestly expect and you will react as I expect.

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