Lisa Marie Knocks Cage and Jacko

Fox News/March 31, 2003
By Roger Friedman

I'd like to say Lisa Marie Presley should have her head examined. But she can't, since she doesn't believe in psychiatry. I mean, she really doesn't believe in it.

On her album, which will be released next Tuesday, Presley even sings the whole title track about this. The song, "To Whom It May Concern," is a screed about psychotropic drugs being bad for kids. ("When there's something wrong take an antidepressant. You can even choose which kind you want by the latest suicide.")

Nice, huh?

Of course, this is the position of the Church of Scientology, of which Presley is an adherent: They are anti-psychiatry and anti-medication. They would rather be the cure for what ails you.

You'd think Rolling Stone, which has Lisa Marie on its new cover and has promoted the heck out of this fact, would have asked Presley about some of this in the story. In fact, the writer of the 8,000-word piece glosses over it, as well as the fact Presley's Web site promotes a charity called the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights, or CCHR. The initials make it seem like Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Contemporary Hits Radio.

In fact, this is Scientology. There are 23 registered non-profit chapters of CCHR, and their purpose, besides lobbying and promoting Scientology, seems to be to raise money for the group. On their tax filings, CCHR chapters spend lavish amounts on promotion and press, paying consultants far more than the charity's local directors.

I had to laugh, too. In the Rolling Stone piece, there are not one but two references to Beck -- his album is playing in the background during the interview, and later Presley is at his house until the wee hours of the morning. Beck is a well-publicized Scientologist, who proselytizes the "religion" with zeal.

Writer Chris Heath could have asked Lisa Marie if she only listens to Scientologists or goes to their parties based on this information. After all, that's why some people think it's a cult.

Presley does break with Scientology philosophy, which says we shouldn't blame others for our mistakes. To get publicity for her album, she turns on Michael Jackson and blames him for their highly publicized bad marriage. She even sends Heath lyrics to a song not on the album that imply Jackson is "masturbative." (There's a word you won't find in any other pop song.) The song, "Disciple," is not even on the album. But Rolling Stone's press release about their article would make you think it's there.

Yet Presley manages to use Jackson throughout the article in order to promote herself. She also takes a swipe at her most recent ex, Nicolas Cage, in the song "Gone": "Turned out to be a coward. When I turned my back, you cut my throat it bled for hours. Was that your power...You with the advisors in your ear. You did everything right it's clear. I know I begged you to stay around. But I'm gone now. Well, here's to you my darling leave. You're stubborn and you're free and of course, right. I don't respect the way you leave. You can be no friend to me."

Presley says in the article this will probably be her only album, and she will most likely go back to being a recluse. It may not be such a bad idea.

As for Rolling Stone, well, I don't know why I expected more. They've taken their whole journalistic legacy and flushed it away, it seems. All that good reporting down the drain.