Remembering Lisa Marie Presley: She Overcame Much Sorrow And Heartbreak And Yet Left Us Too Soon

Feb 01, 2023 by apost team

Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of suicide that may be troubling for some readers.

Born on Feb. 1, 1968, in Memphis, Tenessee, to parents Elvis and Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley was one of the biggest celebrity children upon her birth. However, she passed at the age of 54 on Jan. 12, 2023, after being rushed to the emergency room when she was found unresponsive in her California home. 

Lisa Marie was born exactly nine months after her parents famously tied the knot in a brief ceremony in their suite at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. After Elvis’s death in 1977, she was listed as a beneficiary on her father’s last will, along with her grandfather Vernon and great-grandmother Minnie. However, Vernon passed in 1979, and Minnie a year after. This made Lisa Marie the only surviving beneficiary of Elvis’s trust. In 1993, she inherited her father’s estate, which had grown to $100 million. 

She was the only daughter of Elvis, which means that her four children were his only grandchildren. Lisa Marie had actress Riley Keough and her late son Benjamin Keough with her ex-husband Danny Keough while she shared her twins, Harper and Finley, with her estranged and divorced husband, Michael Lockwood. She was also famously married to popstar Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage.

Following in the footsteps of her father, Lisa Marie ventured into the music business, releasing a few albums and some songs. Aside from her musical career, Lisa Marie also devoted her life to humanitarian efforts through the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation. 

Much like her father, her life, too, was filled with many tragedies. Among the most heartbreaking was the passing of her son, Benjamin, in 2020.

Just before Lisa Marie’s birth, her famous father, Elvis, was going through somewhat of a career low. Elvis had risen to fame on the back of his many musical hits as well as his successful film career. 

Much has been made about the love affair between Elvis and Lisa Marie’s mother, Priscilla. Elvis met Priscilla when she was only 14 and fell head over heels for her, and the two tied the knot in 1967. Lisa Marie’s birth followed almost exactly nine months after the wedding. However, her parents’ love was not meant to last, and they divorced. Although the pair divorced in 1973, they remained friendly, raising their daughter, Lisa Marie, together. Following her parent’s separation, Lisa Marie would split her time between Los Angeles, where she lived with her mother, and Maryland, where her dad resided. 

According to “Elvis, My Dad: The Unauthorized Biography of Lisa Marie Presley,” written by David Adler and Ernest Andrews, Elvis would “let Lisa Marie run wild.”

“As soon as she learned how to ride her bike, she was a terror in the house, cruising around the formal dining room table,” they wrote. 

“Elvis found it impossible to raise his voice to her. At most a firm ‘Lisa’ was all he could manage.”

Despite her special treatment, however, Lisa Marie never thought of herself as spoiled by her dad. 

“I don’t think I looked at it as being spoiled,” she said in an interview with Stina Dabrowski. 

“I think that I looked at it as my father loved me and didn’t get to spend a lot of time with me. And when he did, he wanted to go out of his way to do whatever I needed to do to make me seemingly happy,” Lisa Marie added.

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In 1988 at the age of 20, Lisa Marie married her first husband, Danny Keough, a musician from Chicago. The following year she would have her first child, daughter Riley, who went on to become an actress and son Benjamin Storm in 1992. Although the couple divorced in 1994, they remained good friends. 

In an interview from 2012, Lisa Marie Presley revealed that while all of her children had “a little bit” of her late father, Elvis Presley, in them, it was her son Benjamin who resembled the rock ‘n’ roll icon the most.

“He was at the Opry and was the quiet storm behind the stage!” Lisa Marie remarked in 2012. “Everybody turned around and looked when he was over there. Everybody was grabbing him for a photo because it is just uncanny. Sometimes I am overwhelmed when I look at him.”

Maybe Benjamin’s resemblance to her father was the reason why she had such a close bond with her son. Back in 2009, mother and son even got matching tattoos on Mother’s Day. As Presley revealed on Twitter, “it is a Celtic eternity knot,” meant to represent their eternal love and connection.

In 2014, she had also revealed to Healthy Living magazine that she shared a deep bond with all her children, including Benjamin. 

“I am very protective,” she said, according to People. “I just smother them in love and I am also ferociously protective. They are my priority. That’s what I do. That’s what I care most about. I keep them close to me and make sure they are happy and healthy.”

On July 14, 2020, it was reported Benjamin had passed at the age of 27. He had been found dead with a gunshot wound in his upper torso, believed to be self-inflicted.

Benjamin’s death left Lisa Marie “beyond devastated,” as her representative, Roger Widynowski, told People in a statement:

"She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley. She adored that boy. He was the love of her life."

Years later, his passing continued to haunt the doting mother, who wrote a heartfelt essay in honor of National Grief Awareness Day published by People on Aug. 30, 2022.

“I have been living in the horrific reality of (grief’s) unrelenting grips since my son's death two years ago,” she began.

“Death is part of life whether we like it or not — and so is grieving. There is so much to learn and understand on the subject, but here's what I know so far: One is that grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss. Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe. You do not ‘get over it,’ you do not ‘move on,’ period,” she wrote.

“It's a real choice to keep going, one that I have to make every single day and one that is constantly challenging to say the least ... But I keep going for my girls. I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind,” she added.

Lisa Marie endured a challenging time after her son’s untimely passing. Have you endured such grief similar to hers? What are your thoughts on how to cope with such a difficult period? Let us know, and be sure to pass this on to family and friends, too.

If you or anybody you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please visit Find A Helpline | Free emotional support in 130+ countries to find your local suicide prevention hotline. The hotlines provide 24/7, free and confidential support for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.