Lisa Marie Presley struggled immensely with the loss of her son Benjamin, who died by suicide at the age of 27 in 2020. In her posthumous memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” the late 54-year-old revealed that she kept Benjamin’s body on dry ice in her Los Angeles home for two months following his death. “My house has a separate casitas bedroom, and I kept Ben Ben in there for two months. There is no law in the state of California that requires immediate burial,” Presley wrote, who passed away in January 2023.
Presley, the only child of Elvis Presley, was torn between burying Benjamin in Hawaii or at Graceland, the estate of the King of Rock and Roll in Memphis, Tennessee. “I felt fortunate that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so I could become okay with laying him to rest,” she wrote, noting that Benjamin’s body was kept in a room maintained at 55 degrees at all times.
Riley Keough, Presley’s daughter who completed her mother’s memoir, shared that they decided to get tattoos that matched Benjamin’s. They even invited a tattoo artist to their home to see the ink on Benjamin’s body, which was still in the casitas. “Lisa Marie Presley had just asked this poor man to look at the body of her dead son, which happened to be right next to us in the casitas,” Riley, 35, wrote in the book.
Riley described the moment as one of the top five absurd experiences in her life. Eventually, they sensed that Benjamin didn’t want his body to remain in Presley’s house. “‘Guys,’ he seemed to be saying, ‘This is getting weird,'” Riley recalled. “Even my mom said she could feel him talking to her, saying, ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f–k.'”
However, Riley noted that it was crucial for Presley to have ample time to say goodbye to Benjamin, similar to how she had done with her father. Presley was just 9 years old when her famous father died at age 42 in 1977. A funeral for Benjamin was held in Malibu, and he was later buried at Graceland alongside Elvis.
In 2022, Presley wrote an essay for People, expressing her devastation over Benjamin’s death but her determination to keep going for Riley and her twin daughters, Harper and Finley, 16. “I keep going for my girls. I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind,” the singer wrote. “He absolutely adored them and they him.”
Presley tragically passed away at age 54 in January 2023 due to cardiac arrest caused by complications from a small bowel obstruction. Following a contentious legal battle with her grandmother, Priscilla Presley, Riley became the sole trustee of Graceland.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey at Graceland mansion airing on CBS, Riley opened up about losing both her mom and her brother. “I think having two family members who have passed away, a lot of that time and grief has been spent wondering about where they are,” she said in a preview of the special, while explaining how she came up with the title for Presley’s memoir. “I think the perspective that I choose to have is that they’re onto a new adventure,” Riley added.
