Lisa Marie Presley's Shockingly Sad Life Laid Bare — From Haunting Relationship With Dad Elvis to Tragic Opioid Addiction
Oct. 15 2024, Published 7:00 a.m. ET
Riley Keough Completed Lisa Marie Presley's Memoir
Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown finally hit shelves over a year after she died at the age of 54 in 2023. A month before her passing, she asked her daughter Riley Keough to help her finish the book.
The Daisy Jones & the Six star wrote in the introduction of the book: "Though she tried various approaches, and sat for many book interviews, she couldn't figure out how to write about herself.
"The last 10 years of her life had been so brutally hard that she was only able to look back on everything through that lens. She felt I could have a more holistic view of her life than she could. So I agreed to help her with it, not thinking much of the commitment, assuming we would write it together over time."
Lisa Marie, Elvis Presley's only child with Priscilla Presley, died of small bowel obstruction on January 12, 2023. The Los Angeles County medical examiner's office ruled that it was caused by a bariatric surgery she had undergone years before her death.
Elvis Presley Attended Conferences at Her School
In the book, Lisa Marie looked back on her childhood as she bonded with the King of Rock and Roll. She particularly wrote about the time Elvis attended a parent-teacher conference at her school in Los Angeles.
Lisa Marie said: "I knew he was coming, and I couldn't wait. I could feel the teachers' nervousness and excitement, too. My little student friends were so excited that I got even more excited — everybody was just running around crazy."
The Lights Out singer recalled: "Then my dad showed up. He got out of the car and he had on a respectable outfit — black pants and some kind of blouse — but he was also wearing a big, majestic belt with buckles and jewels and chains, as well as sunglasses. He was smoking a cigar. I met him at the car, and I walked up the walkway with him, and I just remember that feeling of walking next to him, holding his hand."
Lisa Marie Presley Reacted to Elvis Presley's Performances
Even when he was busy with his shows and gigs, Elvis ensured he had time with his daughter.
According to Lisa Marie, going to the Can't Help Falling in Love hitmaker's concerts was her "favorite thing in the world."
She disclosed: "I was so proud of him. He would take me by the hand and bring me out onstage, then get walked to wherever his place was on the stage, and I would be taken from him and brought to wherever I was going to be sitting in the audience. Usually with Vernon [Elvis' father]."
The I Love You Because singer called the experiences "electrifying", saying she loved watching her father perform. However, she admitted she did not like the attention she was getting whenever she was asked to appear before the attendees, including during Elvis' Las Vegas residency.
Lisa Marie added: "It's not that I wasn't proud or that I didn't love him. I just liked the limelight on him, loved it on him. It was not something that came to me inherently. I absolutely abhorred it. But in other less public ways, I loved basking in his fame with him."
Lisa Marie Presley Revealed Her Fears of Losing Elvis Presley
Lisa Marie spent her childhood fearing and worrying about Elvis dying.
She wrote in her memoir: "Sometimes I'd see him and he was out of it. Sometimes I would find him passed out. I wrote a poem with the line, ‘I hope my daddy doesn't die.'"
Unfortunately, she lost her father when he died in August 1977. She was only nine at the time.
Lisa Marie Presley Gave Tupelo a Heartfelt Nickname
In 2022, Riley and her husband, Ben Smith-Peterson, welcomed their daughter, Tupelo, who they named after the Mississippi City where Elvis was born.
In the book, the 35-year-old The Good Doctor star shared that Lisa Marie "would call Tupelo our little light".
Lisa Marie Presley Opened Up About Her Tragic Struggles With Substance Abuse
After giving birth to her twins, Finley and Harper, Lisa Marie became hooked on prescription painkillers — specifically opioids.
The Dirty Laundry songstress noted in her book: "For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn't.
"It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues."
Lisa Marie Presley Reflected on Motherhood
Lisa Marie, who became a mother to her four children — Riley, Benjamin, Finley and Harper — before her death, wrote in her memoir: "I fell in love with being a mom. I realized I had been called to care for something else."
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