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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Tristan Kirk

Lisa Marie Presley’s cause of death revealed

Lisa Marie Presley died at the age of 54 from a small bowel obstruction caused by complications from weight loss surgery, it has been revealed.

The only daughter of music legend Elvis Presley died on January 12 this year after collapsing at her Los Angeles home.

A report from the LA County Coroner has now attributed the death to “sequelae” – meaning a complication from a previous disease or injury.

Deputy medical examiner Dr Juan M Carrillo reported finding “adhesions (or, scar tissue) that developed after bariatric surgery years ago” – a reference to a weight loss medical procedure.

“This is a known long term complication of this type of surgery”, he wrote.

Presley had “therapeutic” levels of the opioid oxycodone in her system, according to the toxicology report, as well as traces of the painkiller buprenorphine and anti-psychotic drug quetapine.

“There is no evidence of injury or foul play. The manner of death is deemed natural”, Dr Carrillo concluded.

The report found that Presley had undergone a cosmetic procedure a few months before her death, for which she was prescribed opioids, and she had a history of “overmedicating” when forgetting she had already taken her pills.

Presley died two days after she had walked the red carpet at the Golden Globes in support of the Baz Luhrmann biopic of her father, Elvis.

She was accompanied by her mother Priscilla Presley at the awards ceremony, seeing actor Austin Butler win the Best Actor prize for his starring role in the film about the rock ‘n’ roll legend.

Presley became the sole heir to the family fortune when her father died in 1977, when she was just nine-years-old.

She followed in her father’s footsteps with a successful singing career, releasing three studio albums. But Presley also suffered from a history of drug addiction, and was checked into rehab at least five times.

Her death triggered an outpouring of grief with more than 1.5 million people watching her memorial service held at the Graceland estate in Memphis.

It also sparked a legal dispute between her mother, 78, and her daughter, the 34-year-old actress Riley Keough.

The dispute was recently settled with Keough inheriting the estate and Priscilla Presley reportedly receiving $1.4 million plus an undisclosed sum for the next ten years.

Presley was a mother of four and married four times during her life, to musicians Danny Keough, Michael Lockwood, and Michael Jackson, and film star Nicholas Cage.

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