Riley Keough Reveals Bittersweet Process to Finish Mom Lisa Marie Presley’s Memoir: ‘I Burst into Tears’ (Exclusive)
Riley Keough describes listening to tapes of memories her mother had recorded as "incredibly painful"
Lisa Marie Presley was only 4 days old when she made her flashy introduction to the world, cradled in the pink-clad arms of her mom, Priscilla Presley, as her dad, rock and roll legend Elvis Presley, pushed them in a wheelchair while leaving a Memphis hospital.
Outside, throngs of fans clamored for a glimpse of Elvis’ daughter, the closest thing to American royalty. From that point on, the public interest in Lisa Marie’s life — from her triumphs to her private struggles — never faded until her death at age 54 in 2023, from a small-bowel obstruction that developed after she’d undergone bariatric surgery several years prior. But now, for the first time, her story is being told in her own words.
After Lisa Marie’s death the star’s daughter, actress Riley Keough, finished the memoir she’d promised her mom that she would help write.
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As she wrestled with her grief, Riley — the sole trustee of Lisa Marie’s estate and the owner of the family’s home Graceland — listened to tapes of memories her mother had recorded. The result was From Here to the Great Unknown, out Oct. 8.
“Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected,” Riley, 35, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive email interview for this week’s cover story. “What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headline idea of her and reveal the core of who she was.
To turn her into a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, a wild child, a fierce friend, an underrated artist, frank, funny, traumatized, joyous, grieving, everything that she was throughout her remarkable life. I want to give voice to my mother in a way that eluded her while she was alive.”
And to do so, Riley (Lisa Marie’s daughter from her first marriage, to musician Danny Keough) filled her own ears with that voice, listening to tapes of her mom talking about Elvis; her romantic relationships; the balm of motherhood; the devastating death of her son Benjamin, Riley’s brother; and the redemptive birth of her granddaughter, Riley’s 2-year-old daughter Tupelo.
“The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was,” Riley says of her mother. “Depending on the day and her mood, she can sound locked-in or distracted, vulnerable and open or annoyed and closed off, hopeful, angry, everything. You hear her in all her complications.”
Through the memoir, Riley wants readers to see her mother clearly, perhaps for the first time.
“I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family,” she says. “[My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.”
In the years before she died, my mother, Lisa Marie Presley, began writing her memoir. Though she tried various approaches, and sat for many book interviews, she couldn’t figure out how to write about herself. She didn’t find herself interesting, even though, of course, she was. She didn’t like talking about herself. She was insecure. She wasn’t sure what her value to the public was other than being Elvis’s daughter. She was so wracked with self-criticism that working on the book became incredibly difficult for her. I don’t think she fundamentally understood how or why her story should be told.
