In a raw and deeply personal posthumous memoir, the late Lisa Marie Presley has opened up about the unimaginable pain she endured following the devastating loss of her son, Benjamin Keough. The revelations within the pages of “From Here to the Great Unknown” paint a harrowing portrait of a mother’s unwavering love and the lengths she went to cope with unthinkable grief.
Presley, the only child of legendary entertainer Elvis Presley, tragically passed away in January 2023 at the age of 54. But before her untimely death, she had been working on this memoir, which her daughter, actress Riley Keough, has now completed.
The book’s most gut-wrenching disclosure centers around Presley’s decision to keep Benjamin’s body in her Calabasas, California, home for two months after his death by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27. “My house has a separate casitas bedroom, and I kept Ben Ben there for two months,” Presley wrote. “There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately.”
Presley explained that she found a sympathetic funeral home director who agreed to transport and preserve Benjamin’s remains so that she could spend time with him and “continue parenting him” during the agonizing grieving process. “I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there,” she admitted. “I think it would scare the living f***ing piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
This heartbreaking revelation sheds light on the depths of Presley’s despair as she grapples with the unimaginable loss of her only son. Riley Keough, who co-authored the memoir, recalled the “bizarre” moment when her mother insisted on having a tattoo artist come to the house to match Benjamin’s existing tattoo so they could ink his name on their bodies.
“I was like, ‘This is the end of her,'” Riley said in a recent interview, recounting the devastating impact her brother’s death had on Lisa Marie. “The moment my brother died, I was like, ‘This is the end of her,’ because they were so close.”
Presley’s memoir also delves into her complex relationship with her father, the legendary Elvis Presley. She revealed that she had harbored anger towards him as she witnessed the profound grief her mother, Priscilla, experienced after his passing in 1977 when Presley was just nine years old.
“I had a mother who was kind of feeling like how could you leave me in a sense, and I lived with that,” Presley wrote. “I was young, but I kind of related him to causing my mother to feel pain, so I remember being young and feeling frustrated that he did that.”
This familial trauma, coupled with the loss of her child, clearly weighed heavily on Presley’s heart and mind. In the final months of her life, Riley Keough noted that her mother seemed “detached” and “resigned,” leading her to believe that Presley may have been using drugs again after a previous battle with opioid addiction.
Tragically, Presley’s death, just two days after attending the Golden Globes, was ultimately determined to be the result of a small bowel obstruction. But the emotional toll of her son’s suicide appears to have been a profound factor in her untimely passing.
As the world grapples with the Presley family’s ongoing heartbreak, “From Here to the Great Unknown” stands as a poignant and powerful testament to the depth of a mother’s love. Presley’s willingness to bare her soul in these pages is a testament to her resilience and a reminder that even the most famous among us are not immune to grief.
Ultimately, Presley’s final wish was to have her son laid to rest alongside her father at the Graceland estate, the iconic home that has long been a symbol of the Presley legacy. It is a fitting resting place for a family that has endured more than its fair share of tragedy but whose indomitable spirit inspires generations of fans and admirers.