When Benjamin Keough died in 2020, at the age of 27, Lisa Marie Presley felt devastated, as she admitted in an essay for the magazine Peoplein August 2022. What the singer did not say was that, due to the “greatness of the pain”, she was unable to bury her son for two months. And he kept Benjamin’s body in his house during that time.
The disclosure, reported by New York Postnow seen in Presley’s memory, From Here to the Great Unknown (ed. Pan Macmillan), which was completed by his daughter Riley and arrived in North American bookstores last Tuesday (on the national market, it is estimated that be available on the 15thin the original).
In the work, the only daughter of Elvis Presley tells how difficult it was to continue living after the death of her son, explaining that she was clinging to the life of Riley, 35, and the twins Harper and Finley Lockwood, 16 years old. But he also talks about how keeping his son’s body at home made the process easier. On the one hand, he explains, the salvation was not sudden and, on the other, it gave him time to decide where he should be buried: in Hawaii or in Graceland.
“There is no law in the state of California that requires you to bury someone immediately,” writes Lisa Marie, who explains that she found a “very sympathetic funeral home owner” who helped her.
During the two months she lived with Benjamin’s body, preserved by the fact that it was in a temperature-controlled room, at about 12 degrees, Lisa Marie Presley invited a tattoo artist to look at the body and get inspiration for a drawing . “I’ve had a very absurd life, but this moment is in the top five [absurdos]”, emphasizes Riley.
But after getting the tattoos, Lisa Marie decided it was time to say goodbye. In the book, Riley recalls how “everyone felt the vibe” that Benjamin was trying to relax. The family then organized a funeral for Benjamin in Malibu; the young musician would eventually be buried at Graceland, next to Elvis; Lisa Marie, who died in January 2023, of natural causes (cardiac arrest due to obstruction of the small intestine), would be buried in the same place.
Benjamin Keough died on July 12, 2020, with an autopsy determining suicide. By the way, Riley writes about how mental health was a challenge for her brother, who tried to hide his problems with alcohol. After his death, Riley and Priscilla found a message he wrote to his mother but didn’t send: “I think there’s something wrong with me mentally or something. I think I have a mental health problem.”