Lisa Marie Presley isn’t the only member of her extended world who’s broke. So is the Elvis Presley Foundation.
On the eve of the 41st anniversary of the star’s death, his legacy for being charitable is pretty much in shreds. The most recent filing for the Elvis Presley Foundation shows just $38, 384 as the value of all assets.
Ticket and merchandise sales from Graceland are supposed to fund the Foundation. But in 2016-2017 the Foundation received only $12,731 in donations.
The Foundation disbursed $40,000 to a group of local Memphis charities in 2016.
Lisa Marie Presley, personally, says she’s broke and is suing her former advisors for $800,000. It’s quite a saga. She sold 85% of her interest in Elvis Presley Enterprises for $100 million in 2005. Lisa Marie says it’s all gone thanks to bad investments. Reports say she owes back taxes of $10 million from 2012 to 2017. IN February she said she was $16 million debt.
The Foundation has been in decline for some time. But in 2007, the total value of assets was $400,000. By the 2012, the value was down to just $18,804.
One problem with the Elvis income, unlike the Beatles, which is roaring: his sales base has shrunk considerably. First of all, there’s very little streaming. And record sales for this year are only about 132,000. The halcyon days are over. Elvis’s fans are at least ten years older than the Beatles’. And then he wasn’t an album artist. His success was singles, none of which he wrote. So his publishing income is minimal if anything. Like all pre-1972 artists, Elvis suffers from a number of drawbacks including no performance royalty for records played on the radio.
