Her own compelling story revealed at last

TORMENTED Lisa Marie Presley brutalized the Church of Scientology as a money-grubbing, mind-control cult that destroyed her marriage to Michael Jackson, according to one of her closest confidants who claims she died bitter and burdened by her years in the controversial faith.

Now, just weeks after Lisa Marie’s shocking death at age 54, Tony Ortega is revealing the tragic beauty’s own chilling story of her escape from Scientology after claiming she was manipulated, bullied and treated as a cash cow!

One of Scientology’s harshest critics, Ortega says Lisa Marie was nine years old when she and her mom, Priscilla, joined the church after Elvis Presley’s death in 1977. They remained faithful members of the flock until a massive 2014 meltdown. According to Ortega’s blog The Underground Bunker, Priscilla got sucked into Scientology after chatting with high-ranking church member John Travolta — despite baby daddy Elvis resisting recruitment for years because he believed leaders only wanted to get their mitts on his money!

Ortega says the Naked Gun beauty, now 77, was considered a “major celebrity,” but her daughter was “treated shabbily, like an afterthought” — until she turned 25 and got access to Elvis’ $100 million estate! He recalls Lisa Marie saying, “After I got the inheritance, they started grooming me to be this person who would go out and get everyone else in.”

Ortega insists she told him Scientology had it sights set on recruiting Michael Jackson, who she married in 1994. She claimed high-level Scientologists bullied her into dumping Jackson after he was caught in a child sex abuse scandal because the church feared the allegations against the King of Pop would bring bad publicity!

“I was in love with Michael. I wanted to help him,” Ortega says Lisa Marie told him. Ultimately, she caved to pressure from a Scientology lawyer and filed for divorce, Ortega says.

Later, Lisa Marie likened her split from Jackson — who died in 2009 — to Scientology poster boy Tom Cruise’s 2001 divorce from Nicole Kidman. Ortega claims the church labeled Kidman a “suppressive person,” which is Scientology code for an enemy to be shunned. He quotes Lisa Marie as saying, “I know how in love they were. But they were driven apart.”

While she remained friendly with Saturday Night Fever stud Travolta, her relationship with other high-ranking Scientologists soured, according to Ortega. “John is my last Scientology friend. I f**king hate Tom [Cruise]. I said I never want to be in a room with him again,” Ortega recalls Lisa Marie ranting.

He explains Lisa Marie was convinced to flee Scientology’s clutches after reading an exposé charging wayward church members were isolated and “reprogrammed!”

But the final straw for Lisa Marie, according to Ortega, came when she flew to the church’s Clearwater, Fla., compound to confront a topranked Scientology leader over mistreating his own family members, which the church denies.

Ortega says the church leader refused to meet with Lisa Marie, causing her to shout at his office waiting room security camera: “You just broke up your own family. Somebody needs to stop you!” After storming out, Ortega says Lisa Marie convinced her mother and daughter Riley Keough to quit the church, too, because under the organization’s rules any contact between them would be forbidden.

Ortega, who has been repeatedly branded a baldfaced liar by Scientology representatives, writes Lisa Marie told him she was later declared a suppressive person. Her comments were backed up by Mike Rinder, a former church spokesman who joined exScientologist Leah Remini to launch the scathing HBO series Scientology and the Aftermath.

He claims Rinder told him: “What you are saying matches precisely with what she was saying to me.”

However, Scientology representatives tell a different story. While acknowledging Lisa Marie’s departure from the faith was initially acrimonious, they insist she softened her views in the final years of her life and was less hostile to the religion.

Stay tuned for Lisa Marie ‘Will” drama