Photo Credit:Associated Press
Lisa Marie Presley desired a dignified bereavement procedure.
The daughter of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley explained in her posthumous memoir From Here To The Great Unknown—which her daughter Riley Keough finished—why she kept her son Benjamin Keough on dry ice for two months following his death in 2020 and how she drew inspiration from her father's passing.
People report that Lisa Marie justified her decision to keep Benjamin's body in a casita close to her house by writing in the book, There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately. Being able to visit and spend time with my dad after his death was really helpful, the person said.
Riley continued by saying that her mother, who had shared the actress and Benjamin with her ex-husband Danny Keough, needed enough time to say goodbye to him, the same way she'd done with her dad.
Following his death in 1977 at the age of nine, Elvis Presley was laid to rest on the grounds of his Memphis estate, Graceland, where Lisa Marie had spent time as a child. Lisa Marie, who lived in California until her death in 2023, had another reason for preserving her son's body before burying him, besides imitating her father's grieving process: the ongoing debate over whether to bury him in Memphis or Hawaii.
“That was part of why it took so long, Lisa Marie—who was also mom to 15- year-old twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood with ex Michael
Lockwood—admitted elsewhere in her memoir. I became accustomed to taking care of him and having him there. It would probably terrify the living f-king. piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
She emphasized, “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.”
But in the end, Riley described the experience of having Benjamin live on their property for so long as absurd, so Lisa Marie had to let go of her son.
Riley stated in the memoir, which was published on October 8, that we all got this vibe from my brother that he didn't want his body in this house anymore. Guys, this is getting weird, he seemed to be saying. My mother also reported feeling his presence and hearing his words, Mom, this is crazy. What are you doing? How dare I?
However, despite Lisa Marie's eventual success in having Benjamin buried close to his grandfather on Graceland's grounds—where she was also buried—Riley has previously disclosed that her mother was never truly able to process her loss.
“My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in,” Riley told People last month. “My mom physically died from the aftereffects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”
