Lisa Marie Presley’s son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 She began living on borrowed time, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough told Oprah Winfrey. Exclusive prime time special “The Oprah Special: The Presley Family – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” airs Tuesdays on CBS.
“I couldn’t imagine a world in which she could live without him,” Ms Keogh said, recalling her later years with her famous mother and how she dealt with her brother’s death. Into the Great Unknown,” Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir.
“She used to say, ‘I’m going to die of a broken heart,’ and I think that’s how we felt, too,” Keogh told Winfrey.
Lisa Marie’s grief was so great that she kept Ben’s casket in her home for about two months after his death. She worked with the funeral home owner to use dry ice to ensure the body was preserved until it was ready for burial.
“Everyone in the house was grieving,” Keogh said, adding that Lisa Marie sat next to the body and was comforted.
During the memorial, Lisa Marie called in a tattoo artist to help ink Ben before putting him to sleep. She wanted to get a tattoo like his on her hand, in the same place he got it.
“My mother was just herself,” Keogh said. “She wasn’t a crazy woman.”
Keogh recalled that Lisa Marie took the artist to Ben’s casket to show him the location of the tattoo and make sure it was accurate.
“He said, ‘Okay, do you have a picture?'” Keogh remembers the tattoo artist asking. “And she was like, ‘No, but I’ll show you.’
Keogh said the tattoo artist was very professional, studied placement and created a meaningful tattoo for Lisa Marie.
The tattoo, which celebrates the bond between mother and son, proves how close they are. In her memoir, Lisa Marie wrote about how much Ben resembled his father, Elvis.
“Ben looked very, very, very much like his grandfather in every way. He looked like his grandfather. Ben looked so much like his grandfather that it was scary. That’s what I thought. So I didn’t want to say it.” Ben and I had a similar relationship to my father and his mother. It loved my father across generations. She drank herself to death worrying about him, but Ben never had that chance,” Lisa Marie wrote.
Winfrey and Keough’s exclusive one-hour interview will air on Tuesday, October 8th at 8pm ET/PT on CBS. “An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” will be streamed live on Paramount+ for “Paramount+ with Showtime” subscribers and available on demand the next day for “Paramount+ Essentials” subscribers.
If you or someone you know is experiencing mental distress or a suicidal crisis, you can contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 . You can also chat with 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline here.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, contact the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET, 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email us at info@). nami.org
