Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley and daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, has revealed the concern she felt for her mother in the days before her unexpected death in 2023.
Lisa Marie died on January 12, 2023 at the age of 54 of cardiac arrest. She had attended the 2023 Golden Globes with mother Priscilla and the cast and creators of Elvis just two days prior. In a new in-depth interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on October 8 on CBS, Keough revealed she was “worried” for her mom’s wellbeing on the last day she saw her.
Keough told Oprah in The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley special that her mom seemed “detached” in the days leading up to her death. Following her brother, Ben Keough’s, suicide in July 2020, Keough told Oprah that she always had a “feeling of being on borrowed time with [Lisa Marie].”
“But there were a couple interactions with her that she just felt detached in a way, kind of like a resignation” in her final days, the Daisy Jones & the Six star revealed. “I don’t know how to describe it. We were at Disneyland with my sisters and I felt that. And the next time that I saw her was at dinner, and that was the last time I saw her, and there was just something strange. I don’t know how to describe it. She just felt detached, tired.”
Oprah asked if it seemed that Lisa Marie had reverted to past struggles with drug use at that time. “It didn’t feel like drugs. I have a lot of experience with the drugs,” Keough clarified, referencing her mother’s struggles with addiction. “It felt like a tired person.”
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“She might’ve said [she was tired] that night, but I sensed it,” Keough added, sharing that, “We walked her to her car, and that was the last time I saw her.”
The shock of losing her mother on three years after her brother’s death was heavy for Keough. “I was in grief [for her brother] when I lost my mother. I was resistant to it at first, going I can’t handle this again.” Now, she says that her grief for both of them “changes all the time.” There are days where she feels OK and days where the grief becomes overwhelming again.
Lisa Marie was in the process of writing her first and only memoir — titled From Here to the Great Unknown — in the months before she died in 2023. Keough told Oprah that Lisa Marie had asked her to help finish the book just one month before she died. She also shared what it was like to listen to those recordings after her mother’s unexpected passing, saying it was really “intense.” As Oprah noted, many people hold just single voicemails from a departed loved one dearly, but Keough had hours of recordings full of her mother’s voice to play back.
Keough said she had agreed to help her mom complete From Here to the Great Unknown just a few weeks before she died, but she imagined they would have more time to work on it together. Realizing she had all of those files to listen to after her passing “was very daunting” for the actor. She “couldn’t confront it to begin with,” she shared.
“After 30 minutes of it, it feels very much like she’s there,” Keough added of listening to the files.
The 35-year-old also admitted in the special that “it’s really difficult” to go to Graceland, of which she is now the heir. “I have to force myself to come,” she shared, “but then it’s better” once she sits in the meditation garden at the estate where her family members are buried.
Keough showed Oprah around the house and revealed the last place where Elvis and Lisa Marie spoke to each other. The legendary musician died when Lisa Marie was just 9 years old. According to Keough, her grandfather and mother last spoke on Graceland’s back patio. “He was heading in for racquet ball, and she was heading out to ride her golf cart.”
Some of Lisa Marie’s audio recordings are also played in the special. In one of them, she called Graceland a “vortex” full of happy and unhappy memories. Mostly, it was a “place of grief for her,” Keough shared. On the morning of Elvis’ death, Keough says her mother “instinctively knew” something was off. “She said goodnight to him … I think she had a sense that he wasn’t OK,” the actor said.
Lisa Marie would also sit alone with her father’s body in his casket in Graceland following his passing, which Keough said was “something that really helped her grieving process.”
Keough’s grandmother, Priscilla, has said she wants to be buried at Graceland with Elvis and Lisa Marie and Ben. “She’ll be buried where she wants to be buried,” Keough told Oprah.
From Here to the Great Unknown used Lisa Marie’s audio recordings ask text in the book that Keough did end up helping to finish. Keough chose to name the book after Lisa Marie’s song with Elvis because it serves as a fitting description of how she views the deaths of her loved ones. She imagines they’re on a new “adventure” in a “great beyond.” The memoir is available for purchase now and is the latest addition to Oprah’s Book Club.