Lisa Marie Presley: Elvis’ heartbroken daughter

When Lisa Marie Presley (1968-2023) succumbed to cardiac arrest at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles on January 12, 2023 at the age of 54, it did not seem unlikely that she could have died of a broken heart. After the tragic suicide of her son Benjamin Keough (1992-2020) in 2020, she never got back on her feet. However, the official cause of death is a small intestinal obstruction as a long-term consequence of weight-reducing surgery. Her tragic death presented her family with a huge ordeal.

“Devastated and destroyed” by her son’s suicide

In August 2022, almost five months before her own death, Lisa Marie Presley described in an essay on the occasion of “National Grief Awareness Day” how much the tragic loss of her son had affected her: “My life and that of my three Daughters, as we knew it, was completely devastated and destroyed by his death. We live with that every. Single. Day.” In the same essay, she noted that she has had to deal with “death, grief and loss” since she was nine years old and found her famous father Elvis Presley (1935-1977) lifeless in the bathroom of his Graceland estate.

Final rest in Graceland Cemetery

Lisa Marie Presley was buried next to her late son on January 22, 2023, on the grounds of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s former family residence in Memphis, Tennessee. The idyllic garden of this historic house has now grown into a sizeable cemetery. In addition to the graves of Lisa Marie, Benjamin and Elvis, there are also those of Elvis Presley’s parents Gladys (1912-1958) and Vernon (1917-1979) Presley as well as his grandmother Minnie Mae Presley (1890-1980). There is also a memorial stone commemorating Elvis’ stillborn twin brother Jesse Garon Presley. Elvis’ widow and mother of Lisa Marie, Priscilla (78), would also like to find her final resting place there.

Family dispute over Lisa Marie’s inheritance

After Lisa Marie’s death, her ex-husband Michael Lockwood (62), with whom the singer was in a relationship between 2006 and 2016, was granted full custody of their twin daughters Harper and Finley (15). In the first few months after her funeral, an ugly dispute over Lisa Marie’s inheritance between her eldest daughter Riley Keough (34) and her mother caused a stir, which was decided in Riley’s favor in August 2023. In an out-of-court settlement, Priscilla was awarded $1 million and $400,000 to cover legal fees, which helped to put the family’s house blessings back on track.

A family with a “big business side”

In one shortly afterwards, Riley Keough asserted that the disputes over her late mother’s will had never shaken the fundamentally good relationship with her grandmother Priscilla. She said: “Everyone was a little panicked because they couldn’t understand what was going on and it just took a minute to understand the details of the situation because it’s complicated. We’re a family , but our family also has a big business side.”

Memoir announced for fall 2024

Both aspects, family and business, are obviously also reflected in a book project that Riley Keough was working on in 2023. , yesterday, January 11th, one day before Lisa Marie Presley’s first death anniversary, publisher Random House announced the publication of her memoirs for October 15th, 2024. According to the description of the as-yet-untitled work, it is based on “countless hours of breathtakingly vulnerable tapes” that she recorded before her death.

Her daughter Riley co-authored the work and turned it into a “raw, captivating, unique memoir.” From their side it says: “Few people had the opportunity to know who my mother really was, other than that she was the daughter of Elvis. I was lucky to have this opportunity and to work on the publication of her autobiography “It’s been a privilege, albeit a bittersweet one. I’m so excited to show my mother at her most vulnerable and honest, and I hope that in doing so, readers will come to love my mother as much as I do.”