Warning: This story comprises mentions of suicide.
Lisa Marie Presley was so overcome with grief following the dying of her son Benjamin Keough that she stored his physique packed in dry ice in her dwelling for 2 months. In response to NBC, the surprising revelation is included within the new memoir, From Right here to the Nice Unknown, which daughter, Daisy Jones & the Six star Riley Keough, accomplished after her mom’s dying at 54 in January 2023.
“My mother had my brother in the home with us as a substitute of holding him on the morgue,” Keough wrote within the e-book. “They instructed us that if we may are inclined to the physique, we may have him at dwelling, so she stored him in our home for some time on dry ice.”
Keough stated that it was essential for her mom — the one baby of late rock legend Elvis Presley — to have correct time to say goodbye to her son, who died by suicide in 2020. “The identical means she’d completed together with her dad. And I might go and sit there with him,” she stated, noting that California doesn’t have any legal guidelines that mandate precisely when a physique must be buried or disposed of. Keough used archival tapes of her mom’s recollections to assist end the e-book.
“My home has a separate casitas bed room, and I stored Ben Ben in there for 2 months,” in accordance with Presley, who had begun engaged on the memoir earlier than her dying; Presley died of a small bowel obstruction brought on by problems from prior weight reduction surgical procedure. “There isn’t a regulation within the state of California that you must bury somebody instantly. I discovered a really empathic funeral dwelling proprietor,” Presley wrote. “I instructed her that having my dad in the home after he died was extremely useful as a result of I may go and spend time with him and discuss to him. She stated, ‘We’ll carry Ben Ben [her nickname for her son] to you. You’ll be able to have him there.’”
She added, “I feel it might scare the residing f—ing p-ss out of anyone else to have their son there like that. However not me.” Lisa Marie was nine-years-old when Elvis died in 1977.
The room the place Benjamin’s physique was reportedly stored at 55 levels and Presley and Keough bought tattoos that matched Benjamin’s from an artist who got here to their dwelling. When requested if they’d any pictures of the piece they needed to duplicate, Lisa Marie instructed him, “no, however I can present you,” referring to ink Benjamin had on his collarbone with Keough’s identify and one other on his hand with Presley’s identify; the mom and daughter bought Benjamin’s identify tattooed on the matching components of their our bodies.
Even by the bizarre guidelines that the Presley’s lived by, Keough stated the tattoo incident was one of the vital weird ones she’d skilled. “Lisa Marie Presley had simply requested this poor man to take a look at the physique of her lifeless son, which occurred to be proper subsequent to us within the casitas. I’ve had an especially absurd life, however this second is within the prime 5,” she wrote.
Shortly after that, one in all Keough’s brothers made it clear he didn’t need the physique within the dwelling anymore and Keough, channeling her late sibling, imagined how he might need noticed the scene. “‘Guys,’ he appeared to be saying, ‘that is getting bizarre.’ Even my mother stated that she may really feel him speaking to her, saying, ‘That is insane, Mother, what are you doing? What the f—!,’” Keough stated.
In response to Folks, the e-book particulars how the household held a funeral service for Benjamin in Malibu and Keough positioned a pair of her yellow Nikes that her brother had all the time liked within the casket. In a earlier interview with Folks previous to the e-book’s launch, Keough revealed, “My mother bodily died from the after results of her surgical procedure, however all of us knew she died of a damaged coronary heart.”
Each Presley and her son are buried at Graceland, the place Elvis can also be interred.
