Michael Edwards’ Daughter Responds to Lisa Marie Presley’s Memoir Claims

Actor Michael Edwards’ daughter, Caroline Van Zandt, is responding to claims about her father made by the late Lisa Marie Presley.

In her posthumously published memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie claimed that Edwards — who dated her mom, Priscilla Presley in the ’80s — was “drunk” one night when he went into her room and started “running his finger” up her leg.

“I was awake, but I was trying to be asleep,” she claimed in the book, released on Tuesday, October 8. “He said he was going to teach me what was going to happen when I got older.”

She alleged that he put his hands on her “chest” and in between her legs. “I think he gently kissed me and then left that night,” she claimed.

“Lisa Marie and I were close friends throughout my father’s relationship with Priscilla. We were confidants, like sisters, sharing all our secrets and complaining about our parents as typical teenagers do,” Van Zandt told Us Weekly in a statement. “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. When she told me about my dad walking into her room, we then addressed and resolved the issue as a family.”

She added: “Those who know Priscilla and her fierce protectiveness of her family understand she never would have tolerated any sort of behavior like that. I’m disappointed and sad that these claims are being made.’’

Lisa Marie claimed that she told her mom Priscilla, 79, about the alleged incident with Edwards, who eventually apologized. She wrote that Edwards “would touch” and “spank” her after the initial incident, speculating that he would be “jerking off” while doing so.

“He wouldn’t be mad at me — he did it very calmly, just sitting in a chair, whacking my ass,” Lisa Marie wrote. “My butt would be black, blue, orange, green.”

Edwards himself has also denied the allegations.

“These claims are absolutely untrue,” Edwards told Us Weekly in a statement. “I never molested Lisa Marie and am shocked at the suggestion that I did.”

In his 1988 book Elvis, Priscilla and Me, Edwards recalled “craving Lisa sexually.” He addressed this in his statement to Us as well.

“I was encouraged to embellish a harmless anecdote about Lisa Marie in my memoir from the 1980s and now regret that I did,” he continued. “I understand that these stories sell books, but the notion that I molested Lisa Marie is just a fabrication.’’

In her memoir, Lisa Marie claimed that she was 11, 12 and 13 years old when the alleged incidents occurred.

“He’d still come into my room every now and then, but I would move or do something to make him think that I was waking up,” Lisa Marie wrote. “Then he’d run down the hallway back to my mom’s room, freak out and stay away.”

Overall, Lisa described what appeared to be a volatile relationship between her mother and Edwards. Lisa Marie’s eldest daughter, Riley Keough, shared her feelings about her mother’s confession in the book as well. (Riley cowrote and finished the memoir following her mother’s death at age 54 in January 2023.)

“Hearing my mother describe these incidents broke my heart,” Riley, 35, wrote. “I know what happened was one of her deepest traumas? but I don’t think she — or any of us who knew her — fully considered how it may have contributed to some of the fundamental feelings she carried, like shame and self-hatred.”

From Here to the Great Unknown is out now.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).