Lisa Marie Presley didn’t get to complete her memoir, so her daughter Riley Keough carried it over the end line.
From Right here to the Nice Unknown, out now, tells the story of the late Lisa Marie’s distinctive expertise rising up as the one daughter of “the King,” Elvis Presley. After her father’s demise in 1977, she had a really Hollywood life, together with briefly marrying “the King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. She suffered devastating loss — the demise of her son, Benjamin Keough, by suicide in 2020 — and struggled with opioid habit.
Lisa Marie’s final 10 years had been “so brutally laborious” that she struggled to jot down the e-book, Riley wrote within the memoir.
At her mom’s behest, the Daisy Jones & the Six actress agreed to assist her, assuming they’d work collectively. One month later, in January 2023, Lisa Marie died, leaving Riley to complete the e-book in tribute, utilizing audio recordings Lisa Marie had made, supplemented along with her recollections.
“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?’” Riley informed Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday’s An Oprah Particular: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley. “She didn’t like speaking about herself notably.”
Lisa Marie wrote within the e-book that she was pushed “to assist different individuals by some means,” particularly others impacted by suicide.
From the most important revelations on the memoir pages to the CBS particular taped at Graceland, right here’s what we discovered about Lisa Marie’s joys and ache.
Riley was ‘frightened’ about Lisa Marie’s well being in her remaining weeks
Lisa Marie was 54 when she died on account of small bowel obstruction, a complication of bariatric surgical procedure from years earlier.
“The final three weeks that she was alive, I used to be along with her a couple of instances [and] I felt frightened,” Riley informed Winfrey. “I feel there was at all times type of an undertone for me due to this sense that I used to be on borrowed time along with her. However there have been a pair interactions along with her that she simply felt indifferent in a means, a sort of a resignation.”
The e-book particulars how Lisa Marie was plagued with abdomen ache and nausea earlier than her demise. The day she died, she texted Riley’s dad, Danny Keough, who lived along with her on and off after their 1994 cut up, asking him to deliver her antacid.
“Are you able to please assist? My abdomen’s hurting worse than ever,” Lisa Marie’s message mentioned, in response to the e-book.
“By the point he had gotten to her with the Tums she’d requested for, the housekeeper had discovered her on the ground,” Riley wrote.
Lisa Marie was resuscitated however suffered cardiac arrest once more within the hospital and died.
Riley mentioned Benjamin’s demise was a catastrophic loss for Lisa Marie
Benjamin died in July 2020 on the age of 27.
“The second my brother died, I used to be like, ‘That is the tip of her,’ as a result of they had been so shut,” Riley informed Winfrey. “They had been as shut as Elvis was along with his mom, and I simply couldn’t think about a world the place she would make it with out him.”
Lisa Marie wrote in her memoir that Benjamin “was similar to his grandfather, very, very, very, and in each means. He even appeared like him. Ben was a lot like him, it scared me. I didn’t need to inform him as a result of I believed it was an excessive amount of to placed on a child. We had been very shut. He’d inform me every little thing. Ben and I had the identical relationship that my father and his mom had. It was a generational f***ing cycle. Gladys liked my dad a lot that she drank herself to demise worrying about him. Ben did not stand a f***ing likelihood.”
Riley wrote that whereas Benjamin was a “binge drinker” who had been to rehab, she wasn’t frightened about him. After his demise, she and Lisa Marie appeared via his telephone and located a textual content he had written about his personal psychological well being issues.
Lisa Marie stored Benjamin’s physique at dwelling for two months after his demise
Whereas deciding on Benjamin’s remaining resting place, Lisa Marie stored his physique preserved in a coffin at their dwelling utilizing dry ice in a room set at 55 levels.
Within the e-book, Lisa Marie wrote that in California, there’s no regulation that it’s important to bury a physique instantly. She discovered solace in “caring for him and conserving him there. I feel it could scare the dwelling f***ing piss out of anyone else to have their son there like that. However not me. I felt so lucky that there was a means that I may nonetheless father or mother him, delay it a bit longer in order that I may turn out to be okay with laying him to relaxation.”
The e-book famous that following Elvis’s demise, there was a public viewing of his physique at Graceland. After the mourners cleared out every evening, Lisa Marie would go to the casket in the lounge and discuss to her father.
Riley informed Winfrey that an “absurd second” occurred after Benjamin’s demise when she and her mother had been getting tattoos that had been replicas of ones Benjamin had. Lisa Marie, hoping to get hers good, introduced the tattoo artist into the room the place Benjamin’s physique was within the coffin to point out him his hand.
“Lisa Marie Presley had simply requested this poor man to have a look at the physique of her lifeless son,” Riley wrote. “I’ve had a particularly absurd life, however this second is within the high 5.”
That’s once they knew that Benjamin needed to go to his remaining resting place.
“Even my mother mentioned that she may really feel [Benjamin] speaking to her, saying ‘That is insane, Mother, what are you doing? What the f***!” Riley wrote.
Benjamin’s memorial was held in Malibu, Calif., and he was buried at Graceland with Elvis — and later Lisa Marie.
Riley mentioned Lisa Marie’s habit battle was an ‘unbearably darkish’ time
Lisa Marie began battling habit at 40 after the C-section delivery of her twins, Harper and Finley Lockwood, with Michael Lockwood in 2008.
“She [pulled me] apart and mentioned, ‘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,’” Riley informed Winfrey.
At her all-time low, Lisa Marie was taking 80 painkillers a day, she wrote in her memoir. She additionally used cocaine. She was out and in of rehab, however therapy wasn’t working. She was very ailing, spitting up blood.
Round that point, in 2016, Lisa Marie left Lockwood and it was a messy cut up. Her belongings had been frozen, and so they had a bitter custody battle that required Lisa Marie to attend court-mandated rehab and endure drug testing. Lisa Marie wanted a court-certified monitor to see the twins, so Riley took on that function. Her mom and youthful sisters moved in along with her — in addition to her father and brother to assist.
“It appeared prefer it may have been good to have everybody collectively. However it felt like the tip of issues,” Riley wrote. “We’d had this superb, colourful, lovely, considerable, enjoyable, joyful life — however in that home, it took a flip and obtained unbearably darkish for all of us.”
Riley wrote within the e-book that she was happy with Lisa Marie for not relapsing after Benjamin’s demise.
Lisa Marie particulars marriage to Michael Jackson — together with that he claimed to be a virgin once they obtained collectively
Lisa Marie was nonetheless married to Danny when the King of Pop began to pursue her romantically in 1994. Issues had been pleasant at first, after which he invited her to Las Vegas, the place he swept her off her toes.
“Michael mentioned, ‘I don’t know for those who’ve observed, however I’m utterly in love with you. I would like us to get married and so that you can have my kids,’” Lisa Marie wrote. “I didn’t say something instantly, however then I mentioned, ‘I’m actually flattered, I can’t even discuss.’ By then, I felt I used to be in love with him too.”
Lisa Marie wrote that Jackson “informed me he was nonetheless a virgin. I feel he had kissed Tatum O’Neal, and he’d had a factor with Brooke Shields, which hadn’t been bodily aside from a kiss. He mentioned Madonna had tried to hook up with him as soon as, too, however nothing occurred. I used to be terrified as a result of I didn’t need to make the incorrect transfer.”
She wrote that Jackson “determined to first kiss me, he simply did it. He was instigating every little thing. The bodily stuff began occurring, which I used to be shocked at. I had thought that perhaps we wouldn’t do something till we obtained married, however he mentioned, ‘I’m not ready!’”
They married within the Dominican Republic on Could 26, 1994 — lower than three weeks after her divorce to Danny Keough was finalized. On their honeymoon she was “so completely happy,” she wrote, noting, “I’ve by no means been that completely happy once more.”
She wrote that she genuinely liked him. She felt he had an “vitality” that “I’ve by no means ever seen or felt in my complete life, apart from with my dad.”
They had been collectively when the kid molestation allegations towards Jackson surfaced. She mentioned she urged him to settle the lawsuit or it could hang-out him.
“I by no means noticed a goddamn factor like that,” she wrote of the alleged abuse. “I personally would’ve killed him if I had.”
After Jackson went off script on the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards and kissed Lisa Marie, she puzzled if he did it “for press,” she wrote, and began to not belief him. She additionally frightened that if she had Jackson’s little one, which he stored pushing for, he would take the kid away and never let her increase it.
His drug habit was the ultimate straw. Whereas visiting him within the hospital, Lisa Marie recalled a “purple flag” when she found that he had “his personal anesthesiologist.” She mentioned she began to ask too many questions — about which medicine he was being administered — and Jackson despatched her dwelling from the hospital and began to close her out.
She filed for divorce in 1996, however they didn’t cut up straight away. Riley wrote that “for years” they continued to go to Jackson at his Neverland Ranch — even after Jackson married Debbie Rowe — earlier than her mother ended the “poisonous” relationship.
Lisa Marie was additionally briefly married to Nicolas Cage for 3 months in 2002.
Lisa Marie’s relationship with Priscilla was difficult
Within the wake of Lisa Marie’s demise, there was a battle over Graceland. Riley turned the only proprietor and her grandmother Priscilla Presley obtained a $1 million settlement.
Winfrey requested Riley if her grandmother can be buried at Graceland, and she or he replied that she would if she needed to be.
Lisa Marie’s reflections on her mother within the e-book are harsh. She was a self-proclaimed daddy’s lady who felt nearer to her father, who she believed was like a “god.”
Lisa Marie wrote that she thought Priscilla “didn’t need me.” She claimed her mom informed her that she considered making an attempt to “fall off her horse to trigger a miscarriage.” Lisa Marie wrote that Priscilla — who began relationship Elvis when she was 14 and he was 24 — frightened about shedding her physique and appears as a result of so many ladies had been after the singer.
Priscilla and Elvis’s marriage ended when Lisa Marie was 4 and Priscilla moved to Los Angeles. Lisa Marie, who needed to cut up her time between her dad and mom, resented being taken away from Graceland, the place she was happiest rambling in regards to the property in her golf cart.
After Elvis’s demise, Lisa Marie was in her mother’s care full-time. Within the e-book, she wrote that she felt her mother considered her as a “trophy” and that she wished she had gotten a “completely different daughter.” Lisa Marie wrote that she was despatched away lots — to camps or faculties — or had nannies caring for her whereas Priscilla traveled. As a rebellious teen, she considered her mom as a “power cease signal.”
Lisa Marie alleged that one in every of her mom’s boyfriends sexually abused her for years as a baby.
Lisa Marie additionally wrote about Priscilla becoming a member of Scientology after assembly John Travolta, one of many group’s most well-known members, within the late Seventies. Lisa Marie was 10 and was enrolled in a Scientology college. She wrote that she later lived within the Scientology Celeb Centre in L.A. Lisa Marie left the church someday between 2012 and 2014.
The memoir notes that Lisa Marie and Priscilla grew nearer once they each had infants. In 1987, Priscilla had son Navarone Garibaldi, and Lisa Marie had Riley in 1989.
Riley wrote within the e-book, “My mother needed to forgive her. And she or he needed to personal her half of their tough relationship.”
Following Lisa Marie’s demise, Priscilla filed a petition questioning the “authenticity” of a 2016 modification Lisa Marie had made to her dwelling belief. The change eliminated Priscilla and Lisa Marie’s former enterprise supervisor Barry Siegel as co-trustees and gave management of the belief — the Graceland mansion and a 15% stake in Elvis Presley Enterprises, which collectively reportedly introduced in a mixed $110 million in 2022 — to her kids Riley and Benjamin.
Riley and Priscilla reached a decision within the authorized matter final yr and have been cordial publicly since.
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