- Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir reveals that she kept her son’s body on dry ice after his death.
- Benjamin Keough died by suicide in July 2020.
- Per the memoir, the body stayed at Presley’s home for two months before his burial at Graceland.
Lisa Marie Presley opened up about how she coped with the death of her son, Benjamin Keough, in her newly released posthumous memoir.
Presley, who died at 54 years old in 2023, detailed the heartbreak in “From Here to the Great Unknown,” released on Tuesday and cowritten by her daughter Riley Keough.
Riley wrote that prior to Benjamin’s death by suicide at 27 years old, he had depression and alcohol addiction, which intensified as Presley’s health declined.
“Ben Ben was a mama’s boy through and through, and he couldn’t handle his mama being in pain. They were so close — like Elvis and Gladys — one inextricably tied to the rise and fall of the other, and seeing each other in pain was impossibly hard for them,” Riley wrote, referring to their grandfather Elvis Presley and his mom, Gladys Presley. “It wrecked him.”
After Benjamin’s death on July 12, 2020, Riley said that she struggled with grief and “was more physically incapacitated than my parents.”
In the memoir, Riley said that Benjamin was a binge drinker but she spent a lot of time with him sober. However, Presley’s addiction to opioids — which Presley wrote had “escalated to 80 pills a day” at one point — “meant she was simply not there emotionally a lot of the time” for her son, according to Riley.
Riley said that she assumed Presley would relapse within hours of Benjamin’s death. To her surprise, her mother “remained completely sober to honor him.”
Instead of having a funeral and burial shortly thereafter, Presley kept her son’s body in her house on dry ice for two months as she processed her grief.
“It was really important for my mom to have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she’d done with her dad,” Riley wrote. “And I would go and sit in there with him.”
Presley wrote that she “found a very empathic funeral home owner” who accommodated her request. The body was kept in a room that was set to 55 degrees to avoid deteriorating, and Presley said that the death rites took a long time because she was torn between burying him in Hawaii or Graceland.
“I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there,” she wrote. “I think it would scare the living fucking piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
Benjamin’s funeral took place in Malibu and he was buried in Graceland, next to his famous grandfather.
“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 OK with laying him to rest,” Presley wrote in her memoir.
Riley said that Benjamin and Presley “shared a very deep soul bond,” and she knew her mom wouldn’t survive long without him.
“She did not want to be here,” Riley wrote.
Presley herself wrote in chapter eight that she regularly fought against her persisting grief and tried to remind herself that she still had three living children: Riley and twin daughters Finley Aaron Love and Harper Vivienne Anne.
“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” Presley said. “I can’t believe I’m still standing. It feels wrong to be alive without Ben.”
In an essay published by People magazine in August 2022, months before her death, Presley said that she blamed herself “every single day” for Benjamin’s death.
Presley’s health continued worsening and she died in January 2023 at 54 years old. The cause of death was a small bowel obstruction from a previous surgery. She was buried in Graceland, next to Benjamin and across from Elvis.
