Michael Edwards denies claims he molested Lisa Marie Presley while dating Priscilla

Michael Edwards has denied molesting Lisa Marie Presley while dating her mother, Priscilla Presley, for seven years in the 1980s.

Edwards, who starred in the 1981 film “Mommie Dearest,” spoke out about the allegations against him in the late signer’s recently released memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown.”

“These claims are absolutely false,” he told Page Six in a statement on Thursday. “I never molested Lisa Marie and I am appalled by the suggestion that I did.”

Edwards, who was 26 years older than Lisa Marie, addressed the controversial passages in his own 1988 memoir, “Elvis, Priscilla and Me,” where he admitted to “sexually desiring Lisa.”

“I was encouraged to embellish a harmless anecdote about Lisa Marie in my memoir from the 1980s and now I regret doing so,” he told Page Six.

“I understand that these stories sell books, but the notion that I molested Lisa Marie is just a fabrication.”

In Lisa Marie’s book, she claimed she was 10 years old and Edwards was around 36 years old when he allegedly raped her.

The actor’s daughter, Caroline Van Zandt, also rushed to her father’s defense via a statement to Page Six on Thursday.

“Lisa Marie and I were close friends throughout my father’s relationship with Priscilla,” Van Zandt wrote.

“We were confidants, like sisters, sharing all our secrets and complaining about our parents, like typical teenagers do.”

She continued: “I kept many notes and letters from Lisa Marie over the years and she never stated or insinuated that my father touched her inappropriately.

“When she told me about my father coming into her room, we addressed and resolved the issue as a family.

“Those who know Priscilla and her fierce protection of her family understand that she would never have tolerated any type of behavior like this. I am disappointed and saddened that these statements are being made.”

Lisa Marie alleged that Edwards once ran his finger up her leg when they were alone in her room.

“He said he would teach me what would happen when I got older,” she wrote in the book.

“He was putting his hand on my chest and saying a man is going to touch you here, there, he put his hand between my legs and said they are going to touch you here. I think he kissed me gently and left that night.”

The “Lights Out” singer remembers telling her mother about the encounter and Edwards apologized to her, looking “grumpy and grumpy,” saying, “I’m sorry, but in Europe that’s how they teach kids, so that’s what I was doing.”

Edwards, however, continued the alleged abuse and “touched” and “spanked” Lisa Marie when she assumed he was “masturbating.”

“He did it very calmly, just sitting in a chair, slapping my butt,” she alleged. “My ass would be black, blue, orange, green.”

Lisa Marie said Priscilla’s response to the bruises would be, “Well, what did you do to cause it?”

Despite denying the allegations, Edwards was candid about being attracted to Lisa Marie and found himself anxiously waiting for her to leave school in the same way that “Elvis (Presley) once anxiously awaited Priscilla’s return from school to Graceland every day.” .

“Once, when Priscilla and I were sitting at the dinner table and Lisa was sitting between us, Lisa got up to get something from the refrigerator and her bare knee accidentally brushed my hand,” he wrote in his memoir.

“It sent waves of desire through me. I looked at Priscilla and thought, Can’t you see what’s going on? I fell in love with your daughter.”

Priscilla began dating Edwards in 1977, the same year her ex-husband, Elvis, died, and they called it quits in 1984.

Lisa Marie, who died in January 2023 at age 54, remembers that their relationship was violent.