Elvis Presley’s first-born granddaughter, Riley Keough, shared an intimate take a look at life inside Graceland in Memphis, the place her late mom, Lisa Marie Presley, spent a part of her childhood.
Keough, the sole inheritor of the well-known property, realized some new particulars about her household whereas parsing by way of hours of audio recordings her mom — the one daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley — made whereas engaged on her memoir, “From Right here to the Nice Unknown.” Keough fulfilled her mom’s needs and completed co-writing the e-book after her demise at age 54 in January 2023. The memoir was simply named Winfrey’s 108th e-book membership decide.
In an unique particular with Oprah Winfrey that aired Tuesday evening, Keough shared her mom’s final recorded phrases, mentioned the influence of Elvis on her household and extra. Watch the complete particular within the video participant above.
“I feel that within the e-book she completely reveals part of herself,” Keough informed Winfrey throughout “An Oprah Particular: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley,” produced by Harpo Productions.
Listed below are some highlights from the hour-long particular.
Keough says listening to mother’s final phrases was “very intense”
Months earlier than she died, Lisa Marie requested Keough to assist her end her memoir.
“She was extremely insecure and I feel there have been moments the place she sort of was going, ‘Why am I even writing a e-book about myself?’ She didn’t like speaking about herself notably,” Keough informed Winfrey.
Whereas she struggled to share non-public particulars about her life, Keough stated her mother felt compelled to inform her story in hopes of connecting with individuals and sending a message in a “hopeful sort of means,” particularly after her son Benjamin Keough’s demise by suicide in 2020.
Within the recordings, Lisa Marie described Graceland as a vortex with no guidelines, and stated she was “largely as much as mischief” and a “true wild baby.”
As an grownup, Lisa Marie would usually return to the property to really feel her father’s presence.
“Attempting to grieve my father; it’s nonetheless there if I am going there. I don’t essentially cry, however I nonetheless really feel all the power that’s there. It’s simply nonetheless there,” Lisa Marie is heard saying in an audio recording.
In a means, Keough stated it was a “stunning blessing” to listen to a few of her mom’s final phrases on tape, however she additionally described listening to them as “very intense.”
“It was simply such an odd expertise as a result of, after half-hour of it, it feels very very similar to she’s there,” Keough stated.
Keough stated her mother was a “self-proclaimed daddy’s lady.”
“I really feel so honored that I acquired to spend any time with him in any respect,” Lisa Marie stated in a recording. Elvis died at 42 years previous in 1977, when Lisa Marie was simply 9 years previous.
Lisa Marie’s final change with Elvis earlier than his demise
Keough confirmed Winfrey the final place Lisa Marie and Elvis spoke to one another: the again entrance resulting in the patio of Graceland. He was heading in from racquetball and he or she was heading out to experience her golf cart.
The morning of Elvis’ demise, on August 16, 1977, Keough stated her mother awakened and instinctively knew one thing was flawed.
Keough stated the memoir is the primary time Lisa Marie has ever talked intimately about that day.
“And he or she stated good evening to him and I feel she knew saying good evening, like she had some sort of a way. I feel she had a way many occasions that he wasn’t okay, you recognize?” Keough defined. “She would inform me that, you recognize, generally she would discover him in his rest room trying sort of out of it or holding onto the railing to, you recognize, get up straight. And he or she additionally wrote these letters when she was little that we now have, sort of saying, I hope my daddy doesn’t die. So there was some sort of sense there.”
Lisa Marie describes watching hundreds of mourning followers file into the home to pay tribute to her father, dubbed the “King of Rock and Roll.”
In her memoir, she described being “so busy everybody else’s grief” that she struggled together with her personal. After everybody was gone at evening, Lisa Marie would go downstairs to view her dad’s physique.
“I went all the way down to the place he was mendacity within the casket, simply to be with him, to the touch his face and maintain his hand, to speak to him. I requested him, ‘Why is that this occurring? Why are you doing this?’” Lisa Marie wrote in her memoir.
Inside Lisa Marie and Michael Jackson’s relationship
After divorcing Danny Keough, the daddy of Riley and Ben Keough, Lisa Marie made waves when she introduced she and Michael Jackson tied the knot in 1994. The wedding lasted two years. On the time, Keough recollects nicknaming Jackson “Mimi.”
“I bear in mind how a lot she beloved [Michael Jackson]. She actually was, like, obsessive about him,” Keough stated.
Lisa Marie spoke about her adoration for Jackson within the audio recordings, saying that he all the time made certain to concentrate to others and guarantee they felt heard.
“He’d be actually, actually and fascinated by all the pieces you needed to say about what you probably did. So he would carry individuals up. I watched him do it on a regular basis. It was superb. Ya know, he did it with me,” Lisa Marie stated of Jackson.
Keough described the couple as having a “very seemingly blissful, loving relationship.” The pair usually stayed at Lisa Marie’s home as a substitute of Jackson’s Neverland to create a way of normalcy for the household – preparing and taking the youngsters to highschool collectively.
Lisa Marie later briefly married Nicholas Cage in 2002. Then she married Michael Lockwood from 2006 by way of 2021. They’ve twin women, Harper and Finley, who simply turned 16.
Keough describes “unbearably darkish” time for household
Keough stated her mother was a rebellious teenager, however she didn’t consider she had a “proverbial drug downside.”
It wasn’t till she was round 40 years previous when she delivered her twin women in 2008 by way of a C-section that she had her first style of opioids. At one level, she was taking dozens of capsules a day, based on the e-book.
“She would pull me apart and stated, ‘I’m — I’ve been taking opiates. And at first, I used to be taking them for ache. Then I used to be taking them to sleep at evening. Now it’s like I’m taking them for enjoyable,” Keough recalled.
Finally, she went to rehab however later returned to the capsules.
The drug abuse spiraled into chaos and Keough stated her mother and the twins needed to transfer in together with her in Nashville. Her dad, Danny Keough, additionally moved in to assist.
Within the e-book, Keough wrote, “It appeared prefer it may have been good to have everybody collectively. However it felt like the tip of issues. We’d had this superb, colourful, stunning, considerable, enjoyable, joyful life – however in that home, it took a flip and acquired unbearably darkish for all of us.”
At the moment, Keough realized that rehab might not work and that Lisa Marie’s points have been possible deeper than some unintentional drug downside. Keough usually would discover her mother tearing up as she listened to Elvis’ songs whereas alone and drunk.
Lisa Marie says son was “a lot like [Elvis] it scared me”
Winfrey recalled Lisa Marie telling her she didn’t know if she’d make it after her son’s suicide in 2020. All through his life, he struggled with medication and alcohol.
“I knew this was the tip of her. You already know?” Keough admitted. “I simply couldn’t think about a world the place she would make it with out him.”
In her memoir, Lisa Marie wrote about her shut relationship together with her son.
“Ben was similar to his grandfather, very, very, very, and in each means. He even regarded like him. Ben was a lot like him, it scared me. I didn’t need to inform him as a result of I assumed it was an excessive amount of to placed on a child. We have been very shut. He’d inform me all the pieces. Ben and I had the identical relationship that my father and his mom had. It was a generational f-–ing cycle. Gladys beloved my dad a lot that she drank herself to demise worrying about him. Ben didn’t stand a f-–ing likelihood,” wrote Lisa Marie.
After Ben’s demise, Lisa Marie and Keough went by way of his telephone, the place they found a message from him expressing that he felt he had a psychological well being subject. That shocked Keough. She knew that he preferred to occasion and “go on these benders,” however she didn’t peg him as depressed.
Winfrey stated “some of the stunning issues” shared within the e-book was how Lisa Marie grieved Ben by bringing his coffin into the house for about two months.
Keough stated her mother discovered a really compassionate funeral house owner who defined how she may preserve the casket together with her till she was prepared for the burial. She had dry ice introduced in repeatedly as a part of that preservation course of. And he or she would usually simply sit together with his physique.
Lisa Marie was buried subsequent to Ben within the meditation backyard at Graceland, the place Elvis was additionally laid to relaxation.
Keough stated she was involved about Lisa Marie weeks earlier than her demise.
“I feel there was all the time form of an undertone for me due to this sense that I felt that I used to be on borrowed time together with her,” Keough stated.
Mom-son matching tattoos
Earlier than she stated her closing goodbye and buried Ben, Lisa Marie needed to satisfy a closing want: to get an identical tattoo together with her son.
“I feel that the story may — on paper, I can see how this sounds fully insane and absurd. However I — my mother was simply very a lot herself. And I — I don’t know when you knew her. There’s nothing — you recognize, she wasn’t a loopy girl,” Keough acknowledged earlier than beginning the story.
Lisa Marie introduced in a tattoo artist to put in writing Ben’s title on her hand. To get the position precisely proper, she introduced the artist into the room and opened Ben’s coffin to indicate him his hand.
“[The tattoo artist], God bless him, was very regular about the entire thing,” Keough stated, calling it “positively some of the, like, absurd moments.”
She recollects her mother opening up the casket and the tattoo artist finding out the position and going again and redoing it for her.
“When he left I used to be, like, ‘Are you aware how f—ing loopy that was, what you simply did?” Keough requested her mother, joking with Winfrey that the tattoo artist would in all probability write a e-book about it sooner or later.
Graceland’s future and a strong lesson realized
Keough, an actress who starred in “Daisy Jones and the Six,” says she plans to proceed operating the beloved Graceland property – which greater than 2,000 individuals tour every day.
“I feel, like, my intuition with all the pieces is all the time to do what my mom would have needed. Which is to maintain it a house. It was our household’s dwelling,” Keough stated.
Keough stated she had loads of robust occasions together with her mother – however the love was all the time there. And that’s one thing she hopes to move alongside to her 2-year-old daughter, Tupelo.
“I feel that if I can simply make [Tupelo] really feel beloved the best way my mother made us really feel beloved. It was unconditional. Really,” she stated.
Keough added, “She did issues — we had fights. She did issues that I, you recognize, didn’t approve of. We’d have terrible interactions, as you do with somebody on medication. However … the love was all the time there, you recognize?”
For those who or somebody you recognize is in emotional misery or a suicidal disaster, you may attain the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You may as well chat with the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline right here.
For extra details about psychological well being care sources and help, The Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness (NAMI) HelpLine will be reached Monday by way of Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or e-mail [email protected].