Priscilla Presley recently opened up about the agonizing moments before making the heart-wrenching decision to remove her daughter Lisa Marie Presley from life support. The grieving mother revealed the depth of her pain while caring for Lisa Marie during her final hours in a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest on January 12, 2023.
Lisa Marie, the sole child of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, was found unresponsive at her Calabasas home and rushed to the hospital where she was placed on a ventilator. Priscilla described the emotional ordeal, spending long hours hoping for signs of recovery. “Lisa really wasn’t breathing, so she was on the ventilator. For hours we were waiting and praying until the doctor came in and said, ‘She’s gone.’ We just couldn’t believe it—it was so hard,” Priscilla recounted.
Lisa Marie’s death was ultimately attributed to strangulated small bowel caused by adhesions—a rare complication from previous bariatric surgery. Despite the medical certainty, Priscilla grappled with what quality of life lay ahead for her daughter if kept on life support.
Writing in her memoir Softly, as I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla shared that the doctor warned her that Lisa Marie’s life would have been vegetative with no meaningful awareness. Imagining her “wild, rebellious, passionate girl” trapped in a vegetative state, Priscilla whispered the painful command, “Take her off the machine, doctor.”
The moment the respirator was disconnected marked the end of a sorrowful chapter. Priscilla remembers sobbing uncontrollably, overwhelmed by loss. She called this day, “the second saddest of my life, after losing Elvis.”
Priscilla now faces a $50 million lawsuit, accusing her of prematurely ending Lisa Marie’s life support to gain control over the Presley estate. However, her legal team calls the claims “shameful” and “baseless.” Though the grief endures, Priscilla stands resolute in the painful choices she had to make for her daughter’s dignity and peace.
