Riley Keough on Grief and Family in Oprah's Graceland Interview

Riley Keough invited Oprah to her grandfather Elvis Presley's Graceland estate in a one-hour CBS special on October 8. This was Keough's first in-depth interview since the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, her posthumous memoir From here to the great unknownis out now. “She was incredibly insecure and I think there were moments where she kind of thought, 'Why am I even writing a book about myself?'” recalled Keough, who finished the book at her mother's request. According to Keough, Presley wanted to tell her story in a “hopeful way,” especially after her son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020.

An anecdote from the book that's already making headlines says that Presley kept Benjamin's body on dry ice for two months and once even showed it to a tattoo artist. Keough told Oprah that she sees the story “sounds completely crazy and absurd” on paper, but said her mother is “not a crazy woman.” According to Keough, a “very compassionate funeral home owner” helped her mother figure out how to keep Benjamin's body at home while she handled the funeral logistics. Presley wanted to get a matching tattoo in the same place as her son. When a tattoo artist came to the house and asked for reference photos, Presley decided to lead him to the body to get a first-hand look. “He — God bless him — acted normal through the whole thing,” Keough said, noting that she followed them into the room for the “absurd” moment. After the tattoo artist left, she said she asked her mother, “Do you know how crazy what you just did was?”

Keough said that in Western cultures it may not be as common to place oneself in “close proximity to death” during the grieving process, but she believes this approach “resonated” with her mother, who found comfort in him after his death found near Benjamin's body. In the memoir, Presley similarly described mourning the loss of her father, Elvis, when he was alone with his coffin at the age of nine. “I went to where he lay in the coffin just to be with him, touch his face and hold his hand. to talk to him,” she wrote. “I asked him, 'Why is this happening?' Why are you doing this?'”

Keough said the title of the memoir was: From here to the great unknownis a reference to a “beautiful” duet Presley sang with her father. But it also has another meaning for them. “I think after two family members passed away, a lot of the time and grief was spent wondering where they were,” Keough said. “And I think the perspective I took is that they're embarking on some sort of new adventure, into the great unknown.”