Riley Keough Says Lisa Marie Presley ‘Wouldn’t Care’ About Reaction to Keeping Son’s Body on Dry Ice
"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,'" the actress tells PEOPLE
Lisa Marie Presley always lived life on her own terms. That’s why the late star’s daughter Riley Keough tells PEOPLE her mom “wouldn’t care what people said” about her decision to keep her son Benjamin Keough’s body on dry ice for two months after his death, in a separate casitas bedroom in their home in Los Angeles.
“The truth is that it was COVID and the plans to bury him were really unclear,” says Riley, 35. “We 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 says her mom ultimately wanted Benjamin — who died by suicide at 27 — “to be in her control.”
“She didn’t want his body to be somewhere where people could mess with it,” she says. “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.”
“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,” she continues.
The dry ice revelation is included in Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, which Rileycompleted for her mom following her death of a small bowel obstruction, a long-term complication from bariatric surgery, at age 54 in 2023. In the book, Lisa Marie writes that she enlisted the help of a compassionate funeral home owner to get Benjamin’s body into her home.
Riley writes it was “really important” for her mom to “have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she’d done with her dad” Elvis Presley, who died in 1977 when she was 9.
“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 writes.
Lisa Marie writes they had to keep the room with Benjamin’s body at 55 degrees. She went back and forth while deciding where to bury him: Hawaii or Graceland.
“That was part of why it took so long,” she writes. “I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there. I think it would scare the living f—ing piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
Eventually, Riley writes, “we all got this vibe from my brother that he didn’t want his body in this house anymore. ‘Guys,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘This is getting weird.’ Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying, ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f—!'”
After a funeral service in Malibu, Benjamin was buried at Graceland, with his grandfather Elvis.
Through the memoir, Riley hopes to show people that her family isn’t only defined by tragedy.
“A lot of our life was very happy,” Riley tells PEOPLE. “The tragedy within my family has been so heartbreaking, but we also had an incredible amount of fun and these beautiful experiences that I don’t know if people get to have very often. I feel extremely grateful for that.”
