lisa marie presley and nicolas cage
DMIPhoto/FilmMagic

Nicolas Cage Reacts to Ex-Wife Lisa Marie Presley's Death: 'I Am Heartbroken'

After her Jan. 12th death aged 54, Lisa Marie Presley's ex-husband Nicolas Cage is paying emotional tribute to the singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

"This is devastating news," Cage said in a statement to ET, "Lisa had the greatest laugh of anyone I ever met. She lit up every room, and I am heartbroken. I find some solace believing she is reunited with her son Benjamin."

lisa marie presley and nicolas cage

Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage at the 2001 premiere of Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Presley's son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020. She is survived by her three daughters Riley Keough and Harper and Finley Lockwood.

Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley began dating in 2001 and tied the knot in 2002. Cage filed for divorce three months after the couple were married, and the divorce was finalized in 2004.

Nicolas Cage is the nephew of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. In a 2003 interview with the late Barbara Walters, Cage said that he and Lisa Marie connected partly due to the famous families into which they were born.

"She was born with the pressure of an extremely famous name from day one," Cage told Walters. "I was a young actor in Hollywood with the name Coppola trying to make it with those pressures. There was a logic to it. There was a sense to it."

In 2003, Presley said in an interview with the late Larry King, "I adore Nic."

"We had a connection," she said, adding that their free-spirited natures made for a bumpy ride and describing her relationship with Cage to that of "tyrannical pirates." "One pirate marries another, they will sink the ship basically is what it comes down to."

Before meeting Cage, Presley had been twice married. She separated from her ex-husband Danny Keough, with whom she had son Benjamin and daughter Riley Keough, in 1994. Most famously, Presley then married Michael Jackson in 1994. The pair went on to divorce in 1996.

After her nearly 4-year romance with Cage ended in 2004, Presley was married to guitarist Michael Lockwood from 2006 to 2016. She and Lockwood share 14-year-old twin daughters Harper and Finley.

READ MORE: Lisa Marie Presley's Kids: All About Her 4 Children