Lisa Marie Presley reveals the deep sadness she felt after her son Benjamin Keough died by suicide at the age of 27 in her posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown,
In a heartbreaking revelation, Lisa Marie shares that she decided to keep Benjamin’s body on dry ice in a separate room of their Los Angeles home for two months before she decided to lay him to rest.
“There is no law in California that requires a quick burial”. She wanted “enough time to say goodbye” to her son, much like she did when her father, Elvis Presley, passed away in 1977, she reveals.
According to her daughter Riley Keough, it was very important for her mother to have enough time to mourn her son. She also remembered how Lisa Marie had kept her father’s body at home after his death, which gave her the chance to say a more private goodbye.
A kind funeral home owner helped Lisa Marie bring Benjamin’s body into the house, where he was kept in a room cooled to 55 degrees.
Lisa Marie explains that part of the reason she kept Benjamin’s body for so long was because she was unsure where to bury him, torn between Hawaii and Graceland.
During this hard time, Lisa Marie also found comfort in still being able to care for her son.
“I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there,” she writes.
She admits that others might have felt uncomfortable having their son’s body in the house, but for her, it allowed her to keep being a mother, even after his death.
In a bittersweet memory, Riley remembers how she and her mother decided to honor Benjamin by getting tattoos in his memory. Benjamin had tattoos of both their names — Riley’s on his collarbone and Lisa’s on his hand.
To get the tattoos just right, they even invited the tattoo artist to see Benjamin’s body to closely look at the existing tattoos. Riley humorously recalls the strangeness of the situation, calling it one of the top five most unusual moments of her life.
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Eventually, Lisa Marie and Riley both felt that Benjamin’s spirit no longer wanted his body to stay in the house.
She wrote about how they all began to feel Benjamin “speaking” to them, showing discomfort with the situation which made them realize it was time to let him go.
They held a funeral service for him in Malibu before deciding on his final resting place at Graceland.
Three years after Benjamin’s death, Lisa Marie herself passed away at the age of 54 from complications linked to a previous bariatric surgery. Riley honored her mother’s wish by finishing the memoir, which Lisa Marie had started.
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Reflecting on her mother’s life, Riley writes that the memoir seeks to show who Lisa Marie truly was — beyond being known as Elvis Presley’s daughter.
She wanted the world to see Lisa Marie as a complicated, multi-layered person: a loving mother, a talented artist, and a woman who went through both great happiness and deep pain.
From Here to the Great Unknown is now available, offering a close look into Lisa Marie’s life and her struggles with grief, trauma, and love for her family.
