Half-brother of Lisa Marie Presley gives rare interview about famous family

Navarone Garcia, the half-brother of Lisa Marie Presley, is speaking out after her death.

The 35-year-old musician, who is the son of Priscilla Presley and producer Marco Garibaldi, shared some background on his upbringing in the famous family. He attended his singer-songwriter sister's memorial service at Graceland on Jan. 22.

"A lot of people know about me," Garcia, who's in the band Them Guns, told People. "But they don't know me."

Garcia said he grew up largely out of the spotlight — his mom had long been divorced from music legend Elvis Presley and he didn't have the famous Presley last name — but whenever people found out who his mother was, they'd always try to meet her, which he "wasn't very comfortable with."

His parents met in the 1980s and were together for 20 years but never married. He later learned that Garibaldi, who claimed to be from Italy, was actually from Brazil and secretly changed his surname from Garcia after being told he'd never make it in Hollywood with a Hispanic last name. When Garcia confronted his father over his mistruth about his background, they became permanently estranged. Garcia subsequently adopted his father's real surname.

Garcia distanced himself from his family at times, he said, including moving six hours away from where he grew up in L.A. to Santa Cruz, Calif. However, he recalled a National Enquirer reporter finding out he was growing and selling marijuana out of his home, and it ended up a cover story in 2008.

"Everybody knew who my family was again," said Garcia, who didn't discuss any connection to Scientology, the controversial group of which Priscilla has long been a member. Lisa Marie reportedly cut ties with the organization.

Garcia — like Lisa Marie, who revealed an opioid addiction in 2019 — also struggled with substance abuse. He said he began using heroin as a teen and later became addicted to fentanyl.

"I became so addicted that I'd need it every 45 minutes," he admitted, noting that he got sober for good from hard drugs and opioids in 2020. (He still smokes marijuana and drinks alcohol.) "There were some points where I didn't think I'd make it here." He did a month-long detox at Priscilla's home, saying he "was pretty much in my bed in the fetal position all day. It feels like a different lifetime, almost. The whole world got a lot better [afterward]." Garcia, who married longtime love Elisa Achilli in 2022, said it's his turn to support his mother after the death of Lisa Marie.

His own relationship with Lisa Marie was a complicated one. She was 20 years older than he was, and they didn't grow up together. Within a year of him being born, she married first husband Danny Keough — and the young newlyweds started their own family a year after that. Garcia admitted he was not close with in her final years — something echoed in a tribute after her death when he wrote, in part, "I know the past couple years weren't easy for you, and I wish things had been different between us."

"It's still so surreal," Garcia said of of Lisa Marie's death at age 54, not delving into their complications.

He did say he's close to Lisa Marie's eldest daughter, Riley Keough, 33, and said she's "been so good with the twins,"referring to Lisa Marie's 14-year-old daughters, Finley and Harper, 14, with ex-husband Michael Lockwood. (Lisa Marie's son, Benjamin Keough, died by suicide in 2020 at age 27.)

Lisa Marie died Jan. 12 after suffering cardiac arrest at her Calabasas, Calif., home. Garcia's tribute to his sibling, implying a troubled strained between them in recent years, didn't go unnoticed.

Priscilla led the tributes at Lisa Marie's memorial at Graceland, reading a poem written by the twins — and Garcia attended the celebration of life, which was streamed online.

Then, in a surprise move, Priscilla filed papers last Thursday to obtain control Lisa Marie's estate. She is challenging the authenticity of a 2016 amendment seemingly made by Lisa Marie that removed Priscilla as trustee and replaced her with her adult children, Riley and Benjamin. Riley, as the sole adult child, would retain the role.

A source close to Lisa Marie told Page Six that Priscilla's move is "strictly a money grab." The unidentified person claimed Lisa Marie "had no relationship with Priscilla, Michael Lockwood or her half-brother [Garcia]."

While there's been other gossip around Lisa Marie's death — including a TMZ report with unverified claims from "family sources" claiming Lisa Marie was using opioids again — her cause of death currently remains unknown pending further testing being done by Los Angeles County Coroner.