Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, Riley Keough, revealed new details about her late mother Lisa Marie Presley’s recollections of the rock icon’s death.
The “Lights Out” singer was Elvis’ only child, whom he welcomed with wife Priscilla Presley in February 1968. Lisa Marie was staying with her father at his Graceland estate at the time of his sudden death from a heart attack at the age of 42 Aug. 16, 1977.
Keough recently sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey and discussed Lisa Marie’s upcoming memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown.” The “Daisy Jones & the Six” actress helped complete the book after her mother’s unexpected death in January 2023.
In a clip from the special, Keough, 35, explained that Lisa Marie had an eerie feeling when she told Elvis goodnight for the last time.
RILEY KEOUGH HELPING LISA MARIE PRESLEY’S LEGACY BE ‘TRULY UNDERSTOOD’ 1 YEAR AFTER HER DEATH
“The morning of Elvis’ death, your mother woke up and knew instinctively that something was off,” Winfrey told Keough at the beginning of the clip. “You want to tell us about that? She’s 9 years old, and most of us remember when we were 9 years old.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Keough replied. “I think this is the first time she’s ever talked in detail about his death in the book.
“She said goodnight to him, and I think she knew saying ‘goodnight’ — like, she had some kind of a sense.
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“I think she had a sense many times that he wasn’t OK,” Keough added. “She would tell me that sometimes she would find him in his bathroom looking kind of out of it or holding onto the railing to stand up straight.
“And she used to write these letters when she was little — that we have — kind of saying, ‘I hope my daddy doesn’t die,'” she told Winfrey as a handwritten letter penned by a young Lisa Marie was displayed.
The letter said, “I love my mommy and daddy and I hope you gis (sic) don’t die.”
“So there was kind of a sense there,” Keough said.
Winfrey noted that it seemed there was “a lot of chaos going on all the time” at Graceland.
“Definitely,” Keough agreed. “But upstairs was only her and her dad. I think she got a lot of intimate time up there with him. No one else was up there.”
In another clip from the interview, the actress recalled that while she was growing up, she saw how difficult it was for Lisa Marie to cope with Elvis’ death.
“You would sometimes find her sitting and listening to her dad’s songs and reading and crying,” Winfrey said.
“Yeah, I think her grief was very like — I don’t think she knew how to process it, and it was a very private thing for her,” Keough said. “She would listen to his music alone if she was drunk and cry.”
“Did you come upon her many times or several times in that state?” Winfrey asked.
“Yes,” Keough told the talk show host. “I would walk into her room, and she had like, speakers, because this was, you know, back in the day.
“And she would kind of be sitting on the floor crying, and she’d listen to her dad’s music.”
The special marks Keough’s first major media interview since her mother’s death. Lisa Marie, who shared Keough and son Benjamin with ex-husband Danny Keough, died from a small bowel obstruction at the age of 54 Feb. 12, 2023.
“An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” airs on CBS Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. EST.
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