The release of Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, gives fans a look into her life and who she was away from the glitz and glamour surrounding her as the only child of rock and roll legend Elvis Presley. While some fans are aware of the heartache she experienced, most notably the death of her son, Benjamin Keough, few people would have realized it took two months before she was willing to part with his body.
Lisa Marie’s memoir was incomplete at the time of her unexpected death in 2023, and her daughter Riley Keough (the daughter of musician Danny Keough and sister to Benjamin) completed it. Riley also shared her memories of her brother’s passing and how her mother chose to keep his body at her Los Angeles home for months before his funeral.
Lisa Marie Presley chose to wait before burying her son Benjamin
Benjamin died by suicide in 2020. He was 27 at the time of his death. As for why Lisa Marie chose to keep his corpse on dry ice? “There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately,” Lisa Marie writes.
Riley shared her thoughts: “It was really important for my mom to have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she’d done with her dad. And I would go and sit in there with him.” Elvis died in 1977 when Lisa Marie was nine.
Lisa Marie knew her decision was unusual, but it appeared to comfort her and bring her back to her childhood loss. “Having my dad in the house after he died was incredibly helpful because I could go and spend time with him and talk to him,” Lisa Marie writes. She was also uncertain where she wanted to bury Benjamin (he was ultimately buried at Graceland, where Elvis is buried, and Lisa Marie would later join them). “That was part of why it took so long,” she writes. “I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there. I think it would scare the living f***ing p*** out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
She continued: “I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could become okay with laying him to rest.” Her comments on her son’s death are heartbreaking to read and show a raw, vulnerable side to the late singer and actress.
To honor Benjamin, Riley recalls how her mother and grandmother, Priscilla Presley, wished to get a tattoo of his name. They wanted their ink to be perfect, and Lisa Marie reportedly invited a tattoo artist to view Benjamin’s body to see his tattoos up close. Riley has since referred to this moment as one of her life’s top five most “absurd” happenings.
As for how Lisa Marie finally decided it was time to bury her son? The family believes Benjamin played a part in this. “We all got this vibe from my brother that he didn’t want his body in this house anymore. ‘Guys,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘This is getting weird,’” Riley writes. “Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying, ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f***!'” Let’s face it, the corpse had a point.
