Then the son of Lisa Marie Presley Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 She was starting to live on borrowed time, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough told Oprah Winfrey in a exclusive primetime special “An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley,” airs Tuesday on CBS.
“I just couldn’t imagine a world where she could make it without him,” Keough said as she reflected on the last years she shared with her famous mother, and how she dealt with her brother’s death after she finished college. writing ‘From Here’. to the Great Unknown’, Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir.
“She said, ‘I’m dying of a broken heart,’ and I think we felt that,” Keough told Winfrey.
Lisa Marie’s grief was so great that she kept Ben’s casket in her home for about two months after his death. She worked with the owner of a funeral home to ensure the body was preserved – using dry ice – until it was ready for burial.
“Everyone in the house was in the grieving process,” Keough said, adding that Lisa Marie felt comfort when she sat down with the body.
During the grieving period, Lisa Marie enlisted a tattoo artist to help her get inked before laying Ben to rest. She wanted to have a tattoo like his on her hand – the same place he had a tattoo.
“My mom was just very much herself,” Keough said. “She wasn’t a crazy lady.”
Keough remembers how Lisa Marie took the artist to Ben’s casket to show him the placement of the tattoo, to make sure the placement would be just right.
“He said, OK, do you have any pictures?” Keough remembers the tattoo artist asking. “And she said, ‘No, but I can show you.'”
Keough said the tattoo artist was very professional, studied the placement and created the meaningful tattoo for Lisa Marie.
The tattoo celebrating their mother-son relationship proved how close the pair were. In her memoirs, Lisa Marie wrote how much Ben resembled her father Elvis.
“Ben looked a lot like his grandfather, very, very, very, and in every way. He even looked like him. Ben looked so much like him, it scared me. I didn’t want to tell him because I thought that was the way it was. ” too much to attract a child. We had a very close bond. He told me everything. Ben and I had the same relationship as my father and his mother. Gladys loved my father so much that she drank herself to death worrying about him. Ben didn’t stand a chance,” Lisa Marie wrote.
Stream Winfrey’s exclusive hour-long interview with Keough on Tuesday, October 8 at 8pm ET/PT on CBS. ‘An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley’ will be broadcast live Biggest+ for “Paramount+ with Showtime” subscribers and will be available on demand the next day for “Paramount+ Essentials” subscribers.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
For more information about mental health resources and support, reach the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine Monday through Friday from 10 AM to 10 PM ET at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
