"Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis" by Priscilla Presley is set for release on Sept. 23, 2025.

Priscilla Presley is opening up about her fractured relationship with Lisa Marie Presley in the final years of her daughter’s life.

In her new memoir “Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis” (Grand Central Publishing, 336 pp., on sale Tuesday, Sept. 23), Presley says that things between them were never the same after Lisa Marie’s unsuccessful bid for sole custody of twins Harper and Finley during her divorce from Michael Lockwood.

In an early copy of the book provided to USA TODAY, Priscilla, 80, describes Lisa Marie’s fourth marriage failing as she struggled to overcome a substance abuse addiction to opioids, painkillers, cocaine and alcohol. In June 2016, she filed for divorce and subsequently accused Lockwood of child abuse and sexual misconduct.

At the time, Lockwood's lawyer, Jeff Sturman, told the Associated Press that Lockwood denied the "highly sensational" and "inaccurate" charges. In a legal filing, Lockwood said he was "disgusted" by Presley's "unproven allegations about me."

When the court’s investigation failed to find any wrongdoing on Lockwood’s part, Lisa Marie, according to the memoir, made a “last-ditch effort” for sole custody and asked her mother to sign a deposition supporting her allegations that Lockwood was “unfit to have custody of the girls.”

“I told her I couldn’t sign it, for I had never seen Michael behave in the harmful ways she was alleging,” Priscilla writes. “Signing it would be perjury. … To her, it was a betrayal.”

When Lockward was ultimately awarded regular visitation rights, “her anger fueled what I feared most: estrangement from my daughter.”

Presley writes that she knew “with a stab to my heart that she would never completely forgive me. And she never did. … I didn’t know yet that I would soon lose her permanently. The events poisoning our lives would prove fatal.”

Though working on Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 “Elvis” biopic helped bring mother and daughter together, Sofia Coppola’s 2023 “Priscilla” movie was another matter, Presley writes. Lisa Marie hated the script and told Coppola it portrayed her father as “vengeful and contemptuous.”

Lisa Marie was concerned that “she would be forced to speak out publicly against Sofia, against the film, and, in doing so, against me,” Presley says.

That never came pass: Lisa Marie, 54, Elvis Presley’s only child, died of a small bowel obstruction (a complication of bariatric surgery) six weeks after the film finished shooting.

“I don’t know how she would have felt if she had actually seen the movie,” Presley writes. “I hope she would have been proud of me.”

Contributing: Bob Mehr, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Priscilla Presley reveals why Lisa Marie ‘never’ could forgive her for this one betrayal

Reporting by Kim Willis, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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