Lisa Marie Presley. File Photo / Reuters

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LONDON - US singer Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, is suing Britain's Daily Mail newspaper for an article alleging she was "piling on the pounds" and which forced her to announce that she was pregnant.

"My client is deeply upset and offended by this article, especially as it was widely published just as she and her family were meant to be celebrating her happy news," said lawyer Simon Smith, who will represent Presley at London's High Court.

The Mail, published by Associated Newspapers, reported last week that Presley was gaining weight.

Presley, 40, wrote last week that she had been forced to "show my cards and announce under the gun and under vicious personal attack that I am in fact pregnant.

"Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight," she wrote on her blog at MySpace.com.

"Starting with a London publication and then New York and Chicago all writing false defamatory degrading stories about all of the dark possible reasons I could be putting on weight," she added.

Presley has an 18-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old son from her first marriage to musician Danny Keough. After that union ended in 1994, she briefly married Michael Jackson and then actor Nicolas Cage.

- REUTERS