Lisa Marie Presley's memoir reveals she stored her son Benjamin's body on dry ice

• Lisa Marie Presley's posthumous memoir reveals that she stored her son's body on dry ice after his death.
• Benjamin Keough died by suicide in July 2020.
• According to the memoir, the body remained in Presley's home for two months before he was buried at Graceland.

Lisa Marie Presley opens up about how she dealt with the death of her son Benjamin Keough in her newly released posthumous memoir.

Presley, who died in 2023 at age 54, described the heartbreak in “From Here to the Great Unknown,” released Tuesday and co-written by her daughter Riley Keough.

Riley wrote that before his suicide death at age 27, Benjamin suffered from depression and alcohol addiction, which intensified as Presley's health deteriorated.

“Ben Ben was a mama's boy through and through and he couldn't stand the fact that his mother was in pain. They were so close – like Elvis and Gladys – one was inextricably linked to the rise and fall of the other and seeing each other. “The pain was incredibly hard for them,” Riley wrote, referring to her grandfather Elvis Presley and his Mother Gladys Presley. “It ruined him.”

After Benjamin's death on July 12, 2020, Riley said she struggled with grief and was “more physically limited than my parents.”

In the memoir, Riley said that Benjamin was a binge drinker, but she spent a lot of time with him sober. According to Riley, Presley's addiction to opioids — which Presley wrote at one point “grew to 80 pills a day” — “simply meant that she was not emotionally there for her son most of the time.”

Riley said she expected Presley to relapse within hours of Benjamin's death. To her surprise, her mother “stayed completely sober to honor him.”

Instead of holding a funeral soon after, Presley kept her son's body on dry ice in her home for two months while she processed her grief.

“It was really important for my mother to have enough time to say goodbye to him, like she had said goodbye to her father,” Riley wrote. “And I would go and sit there with him.”

Presley wrote that she “found a very compassionate funeral home owner” who honored her request. The body was kept in a room set at 55 degrees to prevent deterioration, and Presley said the death rites took a long time because she was torn about whether to bury him in Hawaii or at Graceland .

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“I got so used to him, taking care of him and keeping him there,” she wrote. “I think it would scare the hell out of anyone else if their son was there like that. But not me.”

Benjamin's funeral was held in Malibu and he was buried at Graceland next to his famous grandfather.

“I was so happy that there was a way to still educate him and put it off a little longer so I could agree to put him to rest,” Presley wrote in her memoir.

Riley said Benjamin and Presley “had a very deep soul connection” and she knew her mother wouldn't last long without him.

“She didn’t want to be here,” Riley wrote.

Presley herself wrote in chapter eight that she regularly battled her lingering grief and tried to remember that she still had three living children: Riley and twin daughters Finley Aaron Love and Harper Vivienne Anne.

“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” Presley said. “I can’t believe I’m still standing. It feels wrong to live without Ben.”

In an essay published in People magazine in August 2022, months before her death, Presley said that she blamed herself for Benjamin's death “every single day.”

Presley's health continued to deteriorate and she died in January 2023 at the age of 54. The cause of death was a small intestinal obstruction due to a previous operation. She was buried at Graceland next to Benjamin and across from Elvis.