The late Lisa Marie Presley got a matching tattoo with her late son Benjamin Keough after he died, her daughter Riley Keough said Tuesday.
Keough, 35, spoke with Oprah Winfrey, 70, Tuesday on a special titled An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie And Riley, in which she spoke about her family’s star-crossed history.
The appearance came amid the posthumous release of From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie’s memoir she had been working on at the time of her death in January of 2023 that Keough finished.
In the book, Lisa Marie opened up on making the decision to keep her late son Benjamin’s body in a guest home at her Los Angeles mansion for two months – utilizing dry ice to preserve his remains following his July 2020 suicide.
Lisa Marie also got a matching tattoo with her late son amid her grieving process; Keough told Oprah, ‘On paper, I can see how this sounds completely insane and absurd but my mom was just very much herself … she wasn’t a crazy lady – she was just herself.’
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The late Lisa Marie Presley got a matching tattoo with her late son Benjamin Keough after he died, her daughter Riley Keough said Tuesday. Lisa Marie pictured attending the Golden Globes in LA on January 10, 2023 – two days before her passing at 54
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The late mother and son were pictured in Las Vegas in 2015
Keough continued: ‘And this was just a moment where she wanted to get his name – she wanted to get a matching tattoo with him on her hand. And the tattoo artist was there … at my house.’
Keough said Lisa Marie ‘really wanted the placement to be exactly right’ on the tattoos.
Keough told Oprah that the tattoo artist asked Lisa Marie if she had any photos that would be helpful in the process, and Lisa Marie volunteered to show the artist using the body itself.
‘He’s like, “Okay, do you have any photos?” Kind of a thing. And she was, like, “No – but I can show you,”‘ Keough said.
Keough said she was taken aback amid the macabre moment amid her mother’s grief.
‘And I was just sitting there, like, this is … I stayed quiet because it’s my mom,’ Keough told Oprah. ‘And she – she does what she wants. But it was definitely one of the most, like, absurd moments.’
Keough said that Lisa Marie told the tattooist, ‘My son is here, you know, in the back room. I can show you,’ and that she had followed them because she was in the habit of ‘sort of mopping up behind her, whatever chaos she was creating.’
Keough said the tattoo artist ‘was very normal about the whole thing’ amid the unusual circumstances.
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Lisa Marie utilized dry ice to preserve his remains following Benjamin’s July 2020 suicide , and also got a matching tattoo with her late son amid her grieving process. Pictured in 2010 in London
Oprah and Keough, the firstborn granddaughter of the late Elvis Presley, chat about the death of her brother Benjamin and mother Lisa Marie
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Keough told Oprah that the tattoo artist asked Lisa Marie if she had any photos that would be helpful in the process, and Lisa Marie volunteered to show the artist using the body itself
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Keough said she was taken aback amid the macabre moment amid her mother’s grief
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Keough said that Lisa Marie told the tattooist, ‘My son is here, you know, in the back room. I can show you,’ and that she had followed them because she was in the habit of ‘sort of mopping up behind her, whatever chaos she was creating’
Riley Keough honors her mother Lisa Marie Presley in audiobook
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Riley Keough, Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley and Benjamin Keough pictured at a January 2010 event in memory of Elvis
‘And then when he left I was, like, “Do you know how crazy that was what you just did?”‘ Keough said she asked her mother.
The family had a funeral for Benjamin in Malibu, California, he was ultimately buried at Graceland, where Lisa Marie herself was buried last year, as well as Elvis following his death in 1977.
Keough in the chat with Oprah also said that Lisa Marie had an eerie premonition the evening before her father Elvis Presley’s fatal heart attack at 42 on August 16, 1977 at Graceland, her daughter Riley Keough said Tuesday.
Keough said that in the new book her mother delved into detail about how a nine-year-old Lisa Marie had an inkling her famed father was about to die.
‘I think this is the first time she’s ever talked in detail about his death,’ Keough said. ‘She would tell me.’
Keough confirmed that her late mother ‘definitely’ as a child ‘could sense that’ Elvis was struggling in his final years: ‘She said good night to him – and I think she knew saying good night, like she had some kind of a sense – I think she had a sense many times that he wasn’t OK, you know?’
Keough opened up on her mother’s reminiscences of her late father, one of the most influential figures in the history of American music.
‘She would tell me that, sometimes she would find him in his bathroom looking kind of out of it or holding onto the railing to stand up straight,’ Keough said. ‘And she also wrote these letters when she was little that we have kind of saying, “I hope my daddy doesn’t die.” So there was some kind of sense there.’
Riley Keough reveals Lisa Marie Presley ‘sensed’ Elvis would die
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Lisa Marie Presley had an eerie premonition the evening before her father Elvis Presley’s fatal heart attack at 42 on August 16, 1977 at Graceland, her daughter Riley Keough said Tuesday
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The late Elvis Presley and Lisa Marie Presley pictured in 1972
Keough also opened up on Lisa Marie’s admission in the book that at nine-years-old, she sat in the room where Elvis’ casket amid a ‘moment … that really helped her grieving process.’
Keough said, There was something in that for her that resonated, and I think that that dictated how she went on to grieve my brother.’
Keough said she found her mother’s methods of grieving ‘pretty typical’ but ‘not so much in the Western world.’
She said of the contrast: ‘I think everything is far away and removed and you don’t really see the process and you don’t see the body and you don’t see everything kind of just goes away. I think in other cultures there is more of a leaning towards a close proximity to the dying and to the death.’
Keough was asked about her mother’s final days, as she appeared to be ailing two days before her passing at 54 as she was pictured attending the Golden Globes in support of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film.
‘The last sort of three weeks that she was alive I was with her a few times that I felt worried,’ Keough said. ‘I think there was always sort of an undertone for me because of this feeling that I was on borrowed time with her … there were a couple interactions with her that she just felt different.’
Keough said Lisa Marie appeared ‘detached,’ ‘tired’ and resigned as she was reeling from the grief of losing Benjamin, noting that she didn’t think it was related to substance abuse.
‘It didn’t feel like drugs – I have a lot of experience with the drugs – it felt like a tired person,’ Keough said.
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Oprah has made From Here to the Great Unknown a book club pick
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Keough said she found her mother’s methods of grieving ‘pretty typical’ but ‘not so much in the Western world.’
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Keough was asked about her mother’s final days, as she appeared to be ailing two days before her passing at 54 as she was pictured attending the Golden Globes in support of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film
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Keough said Lisa Marie appeared ‘detached,’ ‘tired’ and resigned as she was reeling from the grief of losing Benjamin, noting that she didn’t think it was related to substance abuse
Oprah noted to Keough that Lisa Marie ‘suffered from addiction,’ as Keough cited that ‘her father had been an addict’ in the book.
Keough said that it was ‘really confusing’ to pinpoint a time when substance abuse became an issue for her late mother.
‘I don’t think she was an addict – like, for most of my life, that wasn’t my experience – so she didn’t do drugs,’ Keough said. ‘She dabbled as a teenager. It wasn’t like she had a it wasn’t like she had a for real drug problem.’
Oprah noted how when Lisa Marie welcomed her younger daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood, 16, she began taking opioids in the wake of the pain of undergoing a cesarean section.
The habit escalated rapidly, Oprah said, as Lisa Marie had been ‘taking up to 80 pills a day’ at one point.
Keough said: ‘She pulled me aside and said I’ve been taking opiates. And at first I was taking them for pain. Then I was taking them to sleep at night. Now I’m taking them for fun.
‘Then she went to rehab, ended up back on the pills. And then I started noticing her feeling more high. First it was sort of sleepier. And then it became progressively worse.’
Keough recalled, ‘There was a day she kind of bumped into a wall and I kind of noticed that things just were getting bizarre and our conversations were weird.’
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Keough said that it was ‘really confusing’ to pinpoint a time when substance abuse became an issue for her late mother
Lisa Marie Presley appears to be unsteady at the Golden Globes
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Keough said: ‘I don’t think she was an addict – like, for most of my life, that wasn’t my experience – so she didn’t do drugs’
The rare special from Winfrey aired about three years after the 70-year-old media icon made headlines for a pair of high-profile broadcasts with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry; and Adele.
The interview stemming from the famed Memphis mansion marks the first in-depth chat Keough has done since the January 12, 2023 death of her mother Lisa Marie Presley at 54, according to CBS News.
Oprah released a statement earlier Tuesday about selecting the posthumous memoir from Lisa Marie as her book club selection of the month amid its release.
‘I have great love and admiration for Lisa Marie Presley, and was so moved that her daughter Riley, through her grief, was able to help her finish a beautifully touching memoir that allows us to see her mother at her most honest and vulnerable,’ Oprah said. ‘This is an intimate look at what it was like growing up as heir to one of America’s most famous families.’
Keough, star of Daisy Jones & The Six, had been in legal clashes with her grandmother Priscilla Presley, 79, over conditions of Lisa Marie’s will and estate in the nearly two years since her passing.
While they were reportedly not talking at one point, they came to a settlement in June of 2023 and reconciled earlier this year for a joint appearance at the Emmy Awards.
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Keough had been in legal clashes with her grandmother Priscilla Presley, 79, over conditions of Lisa Marie’s will and estate, but they came to a settlement in June of 2023 and reconciled earlier this year for a joint appearance at the Emmy Awards
Keough in recent years has also fended off fraudsters after the famed family was targeted in a high-profile scam.
A Missouri woman named Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, was arrested last month in connection with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft in the scheme, officials with the Department of Justice said, NBC News reported.
Prosecutors said Findley had a checkered legal past of scams and fraud, as well as a variety of aliases.
Findley in August appeared in Springfield, Missouri at the United States Courthouse ahead of Judge David Rush, where she consented to hearings occurring in the Western District of Tennessee.
Prosecutors in the case said that Findley had incorporated the use of fake identities, post office boxes, phones and faxes in connection with the attempted flimflam. Findley denied any involvement this past June, NBC News reported.
The issue emerged after Keough sued and obtaining a temporary restraining order in May over a scheduled auction of the property.
A judge in Memphis had blocked an auction of the 13-acre estate, the AP reported after reviewing court documents, after a company named Naussany Investments and Private Lending said that Lisa Marie had used the estate against a $3.8 million she took out in 2018 for her Promenade Trust.
Keough, who inherited her mother’s trust and the estate follower her death, said in legal docs that Naussany Investments and Private Lending had given her fraudulent info over the loan in September of 2023.
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An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie And Riley was filmed at the famed Memphis mansion marking the first in-depth chat Keough has done since the January 12, 2023 death of her mother Lisa Marie Presley at 54
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Graceland initially opened to the public as a museum in 1982, five year’s after Elvis’s death at 42 in August of 1977
Priscilla Presley confirms she will be buried next to Elvis
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An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie And Riley aired on CBS Tuesday
Keough’s lawyer said in legal docs, ‘Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany Investments and never gave a deed of trust to Naussany Investments.’
A notary whose name was listed on the documents named Kimberly Philbrick said she had never met Lisa Marie Presley or worked on any projects with her in the filing from Keough’s team.
‘Elvis Presley Enterprises can confirm that these claims are fraudulent,’ Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. said in a statement May 21. ‘There is no foreclosure sale. Simply put, the counter lawsuit has been filed is to stop the fraud.’
Graceland initially opened to the public as a museum in 1982, five year’s after Elvis’s death at 42 in August of 1977.
Lisa Marie in her final years had recorded hours of audio amid her work on a book titled From Here to the Great Unknown, which Keough completed after her mother’s death, the TV network said.
In one passage, Lisa Marie said of Elvis: ‘I felt my father could change the weather. He was a god to me. A chosen human being.’
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