Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
Following the tragic death of her son Benjamin, Lisa Marie Presley kept his body at her residence for two months. Lisa Marie, the only child of the legendary Elvis Presley, passed away in January 2023 when she was 54 years old. Her death was attributed to a bowel obstruction.
Before her passing, Lisa Marie was working on a memoir, which her daughter Riley Keough has since completed. In the book, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” Lisa Marie shared her struggle to continue living for her other children after Benjamin’s loss. Her decision to keep Benjamin’s body was partly influenced by uncertainty over his final resting place—whether it would be Hawaii or Graceland.
She described in her memoir: “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 you have to bury someone immediately.”
With the help of an understanding funeral home owner, she was able to have Benjamin’s body brought to her home. Lisa Marie wrote about how she “got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him” in a room maintained at 55 degrees.
Benjamin, who struggled with mental health issues, died by suicide at the age of 27 in 2020. In his memory, Lisa Marie and Riley chose to get tattoos and invited a tattoo artist to their home. When the artist asked for pictures of Benjamin, Riley recounted in the memoir: “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. I’ve had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five.”
Lisa Marie had shared an essay with People about ‘navigating grief’ before her own death in 2023.
In her essay, she wrote: “This is not a comfortable subject for anyone, and it is most unpopular to talk about. This is quite long, potentially triggering and very hard to confront. But if we’re going make any progress on the subject, grief has to get talked about. I’m sharing my thoughts in the hopes that somehow, we can change that.”
She continued: “I already battle with and beat myself up tirelessly and chronically, blaming myself every single day and that’s hard enough to now live with, but others will judge and blame you too, even secretly or behind your back which is even more cruel and painful on top of everything else.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, support is available through Mental Health America. You can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. Additionally, Crisis Text Line is reachable by texting MHA to 741741.
For further assistance, you can also call 1-800-985-5990 or text “TalkWithUs” to 66746 at the SAMHSA Disaster Distress Helpline.