Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Elvis, sadly passed away in January of 2023 at the age of 54. On Tuesday night, Lisa Marie’s actress daughter Riley Keough, 35, sat down with Oprah Winfrey, 70, to open up about her final memories of her mother.
Lisa Marie’s Final Days
Riley is currently promoting Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown. Riley helped to finish this book after her mother’s death.
During An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley, Riley opened up about her mother’s final days. Just two days before her passing, Lisa Marie attended the Golden Globe Awards with her mother Priscilla to support the 2022 movie Elvis. Even so, Riley was privately worried about her mother’s health in her final weeks.
“The last three weeks that she was alive I was with her a few times that I felt worried,” she said. “I think there was always sort of an undertone for me because of this feeling that I was on borrowed time with her. But there were a couple interactions with her that she just felt detached in a way, a kind of a resignation.”
When asked by Oprah if she believed that her mother, who had been open about her past addiction struggles, was using drugs again, Riley was quick to reply, “It didn’t feel like drugs. I have a lot of experience with the drugs. It felt like a tired person.”
Watch Riley talk more about her late mother’s memoir in the video below.
Lisa Marie’s Never Ending Grief
Riley explained that she felt that she was on “borrowed time” with her mother ever since the 2020 death of her brother Benjamin. He was just 27 years-old when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“The moment my brother died, I was like, ‘this is the end of her,’ because they were so close,” Riley lamented. “They were as close as Elvis was with his mother, and I just couldn’t imagine a world where she would make it without him.”
In this same interview, Riley talked about the anger she previously felt at her grandfather Elvis, who died long before she was born. Riley couldn’t stand to see the never-ending grief that her mother had over Elvis’ 1977 death, and there was a time where she held that against the King.
“I had a mother who was kind of feeling like how could you leave me in a sense, and I lived with that,” she said. “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.”
Related: Lisa Marie Presley ‘Knew’ Her Father Elvis Would Die Before His Passing – ‘She Had A Sense….’
Riley’s Plans For Graceland
This is partly why Riley has a difficult relationship with Elvis’ iconic estate Graceland. After Lisa Marie’s death, Riley is the sole inheritor.
“I don’t want to come here usually, and I have to sort of force myself to come,” she confessed. “And then once I’m here, I really feel a sense of closeness when I go sit in the meditation garden.”
As for the future of Graceland, a popular tourist attraction that brings in around 2,000 visitors daily, Riley plans to do what she feels her mother would have wanted.
“My instinct with everything is always to do what my mother would have wanted, which is to keep it a home,” Riley concluded. “It was our family’s home.”
Related: Elvis Presley’s Graceland Safe After Foreclosure Scheme Revealed To Be Fraud
Lisa Marie’s death continues to be a major tragedy, as she was far too young to die. We applaud Riley for finishing her mother’s memoir, and for continuing to protect Graceland’s legacy.
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