Riley Keough has her mom’s back even in death, revealing that Lisa Marie Presley “wouldn’t care” about backlash over her choice to keep late son Benjamin Keough on dry ice after his death.
“If my mom were here, she’d be like, ‘Yeah, whatever. I don’t care. If people think that’s crazy, they can go f— themselves,” Riley, 35, told People on Wednesday, October 9, referring to her mom’s choice to keep Benjamin’s body on dry ice at her house before burying him in Tennessee in 2020.
Riley explained, “The truth is that it was COVID and the plans to bury him were really unclear.” She noted that the family “needed to get to Graceland, and it was really hard because it was COVID, and we didn’t know who was going to come, so there was a lot of planning that needed to happen.”
Riley recalled her mom wanting Benjamin, who died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27, to be “in her control” which is why she kept him close. (Presley shared Riley and Benjamin with ex-husband Danny Keough.)
“She didn’t want his body to be somewhere where people could mess with it,” Riley added. “We come from a family that’s pretty high profile, so I think she ultimately just felt like she wanted to be in control of the situation.”
Riley’s remarks come one day after she released Presley’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, posthumously. In the book, which Riley finished after her mom’s death in January 2023, Presley detailed Benjamin’s burial process.
“My house has a separate casitas bedroom, and I kept Ben Ben in there for two months. There is no law in the state of California that you have to bury someone immediately,” Presley wrote. “I found a very empathetic funeral homeowner … She said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben to you.’”
Riley recalled her mom wanting to have “have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she’d done with her dad.” Lisa Marie’s father, Elvis Presley, died in 1997 when she was 9, but wasn’t buried right away.
“Having my dad in the house after he died was incredibly helpful because I could go and spend time with him and talk to him,” Lisa Marie wrote.
During the two months that Benjamin’s body was on ice, Lisa Marie said she had a tattoo artist come to the house so she could get matching ink. When asked for a picture of Benjamin, she showed the artist her son’s body.
“Lisa Marie Presley had just asked this poor man to look at the body of her dead son, which happened to be right next to us in the casitas,” Riley recalled in the book. “I’ve had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five.”
Riley noted that once Lisa Marie got her matching ink, she “got the vibe” that Benjamin should be laid to rest. “Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f—!’” Riley wrote.
Benjamin’s funeral took place in Malibu, and he was later laid to rest at Graceland, which is his grandfather Elvis’ estate, in Memphis, Tennessee.
When Lisa Marie died from a heart attack at age 53, she too was buried at Graceland. Her body was laid to rest next to her father and her son.
Lisa Marie is survived by her daughter Riley and Riley’s baby girl, Tupelo, whom she welcomed with husband Ben Smith-Peterson in 2022. Lisa Marie’s legacy also continues with her youngest daughters, twins Harper and Finley, 16, whom she shared with ex Michael Lockwood.
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