Lisa Marie Presley struggled very badly to come to terms with the death of her son Benjamin Keough… so, before she could decide on his final resting place, she bought some more time with him by storing his body in her home for two months after his passing.
Whoa…
The late singer’s posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown officially dropped on Tuesday. Shared within it are some absolutely devastating details about her struggle to cope with Benjamin’s death. As you’ll recall, Ben sadly died by suicide back in 2020 at just 27 years old. And according to Lisa, she didn’t know whether to lay him to rest in Graceland or in Hawaii — so she preserved his body in her California home to give herself some time to mull it over.
Related: Riley Keough Reveals The Most Heartbreaking Take On Mom Lisa’s Death
In the book, she wrote:
“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. I found a very empathetic funeral home owner … She said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben to you.’”
OMG!
The Storm & Grace singer noted that she kept the room at a cool 55 degrees to help preserve his body. All the while, she wrote that she “got used to” his presence and “caring for him and keeping him there.” At one point, she even had a tattoo artist come in so she and her daughter (and Ben’s sister) Riley Keough could get tattoos that matched his. Benjamin apparently had Riley’s name on his collarbone and Lisa Marie’s on his hand, so the mother-daughter duo got his name on their own bodies in the same spots.
But before that could happen, the tattoo artist asked the grieving mother if she had any photos of his tattoos for reference — and she responded, “No, but I can show you.” Lisa Marie added in her book:
“I think it would scare the living f**king piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”
Since LMP sadly died in January 2023, she didn’t have enough time to finish her book. So, Riley stepped in to do it for her. And while reflecting on the tattoo situation, she wrote:
“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.”
That must have been so eerie…
After getting the ink, though, Riley noted that everyone “got the vibe” that Benjamin wanted to be brought to his final resting place. Riley wrote:
“Even my mom said that she could feel him talking to her, saying ‘This is insane, Mom, what are you doing? What the f**k.”
They eventually held a funeral for Ben in Malibu, before burying him next to Elvis at Graceland, where Lisa Marie would ultimately be buried, too.
After Ben’s death, Lisa Marie wrote she had to “fight” to stay alive for Riley and her other two daughters Finley and Harper Lockwood, and that it only became more heartbreaking after she and Riley discovered a message on his phone addressed to his mom. It read:
“We found a text sent to my mom a couple of weeks before he died that read, ‘I think something’s wrong with me mentally or something like that. I think I have a mental health issue.”
How devastating. Riley wrote:
“It’s heartbreaking to me that he only realized he might need help just two weeks before he killed himself.”
What a truly heartbreaking situation all around. Lisa Marie struggled to cope so much…
What are your reactions to this revelation? Let us know in the comments down below.
[Images via Judy Eddy/WENN]