Riley Keough on Lisa Marie Presley’s Grief over Dad Elvis’ Death: ‘I Don’t Think She Knew How to Process It’ (Exclusive)
Lisa Marie’s memoir, which Riley finished writing, is out Oct. 8
When Riley Keough was a young girl, she watched her mom grieve the loss of her late grandfather, Elvis Presley. In a clip shared exclusively with PEOPLE from An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley, the Daisy Jones & the Six actress opened up about Lisa Marie Presley’s grieving process.
“Her grief was very…. I don’t think she knew how to process it,” Riley, 35, said of her grandfather’s death in August 1977. “It was a very private thing for her,” the actress continued. “She would listen to his music alone, if she was drunk, and cry.” The 70-year-old host then asked Riley if she witnessed her mother “several times in that state.”
“Yes, I would walk in her room and she had speakers — because this was back in the day — and she would be sitting on the floor crying and she’d listen to her dad’s music,” she replied. The full episode will be available to watch on Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. PT/ET on CBS and will stream on Paramount+. In the episode, Winfrey traveled to Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. to sit down with Riley and discuss the memoir which Lisa Marie spent hours writing — and Riley finished after her unexpected death in 2023 at age 54.
Speaking to PEOPLE for a cover story in September, Riley said that in order to complete the memoir, she listened to tapes of memories Lisa Marie recorded.
“Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected,” Riley wrote in an email interview.
“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,” she continued. “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.
”In the memoir, Lisa Marie covers her love for Elvis and how much she struggled after his death, her romantic relationships, motherhood, the devastating death of her son Benjamin in 2020 and the 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 said. “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.”
She added, “There wasn’t much we didn’t discuss, and I know that she knew how much I loved her, just as I know how much she loved me and my brother and sisters. I don’t feel like she or I left anything unsaid, which I feel profoundly grateful for.”
