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LISA MARIE PRESLEY was no stranger to grief, having lost her dad Elvis and second husband Michael Jackson to the curse of drugs.
But the 2020 suicide of her only son Benjamin, 27, was more than the singer and actress could bear.
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In her autobiography, published this week — almost two years after she died in January 2023 aged 54 — she reveals that she kept her son’s body on dry ice at home in Los Angeles for two months before arranging his funeral.
Bereaved Lisa Marie even invited a tattoo artist to view Benjamin’s remains and see where he had an inking on his hand so that she could get one in exactly the same place.
Her posthumously published memoir, titled From Here To The Great Unknown, was completed by Lisa Marie’s oldest daughter Riley Keough.
In the book, it is also claimed King of Pop Michael lost his virginity to Lisa Marie when he was 35.
READ MORE ON MICHAEL JACKSON
And even though their marriage in the Nineties only lasted two years, four-times wed Lisa Marie reckoned it was her happiest relationship.
Just like her dad and Michael, Lisa Marie — who died of a small bowel obstruction linked to previous weight- loss surgery — struggled with an addiction to drugs.
At one point she was downing 80 opioid painkillers a day after being prescribed them following the 2008 birth of her twin daughters, Harper and Finley, to fourth husband Michael Lockwood.
The autobiography also tells how Lisa Marie, Elvis’s only child, was allegedly abused by one of her mother Priscilla’s boyfriends when she was ten.
It is clear from the book she had a strained relationship with her mum, who was divorced from Elvis in 1973, four years before his death.
But Lisa Marie was devoted to her own children.
And Riley believes that Benjamin’s self-inflicted fatal gun-shot wound broke her mum’s spirit.
Speaking to talk show host Oprah Winfrey at Graceland about the book, Mad Max: Fury Road actress Riley, 35, said: “My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in.
“My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”
Lisa Marie’s decision to keep Benjamin’s body in a room at her Graceland home set to just over 12 degrees celsius might sound strange, but Riley insists her mother “wasn’t a crazy lady.”
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Quite simply, she could not decide whether to bury her son at Graceland, close to Elvis, or in their beloved Hawaii.
Rather than leave him in the funeral home “far away”, Lisa Marie requested he remained close by.
Before he was buried, she also asked the tattoo artist to ink her and Riley in the exact same spot that Benjamin had one.
Riley recalled: “He’s like, ‘OK, do you have any photos?’ and she was like, ‘No. But I can show you’.
“I stayed quiet because it’s my mom and she does what she wants, but it was definitely one of the most absurd moments.”
In the end, Lisa Marie decided Benjamin should be laid to rest at the family plot in Graceland.
Reading the memoir, it is obvious that such bizarre acts were normal in the Presley heiress’s life.
‘My dad’s intensity’
When she was young, Elvis let her ride a pony through their mansion, and he would have “fireworks wars” with his entourage, which saw them aiming the bangers at one another.
The legendary singer, who sold half a billion records, was an unstable character, with Lisa Marie recalling: “You could always sense my dad’s intensity.
“If it was a good intensity, it was incredible. If it was bad, watch the f*** out.”
Elvis was hooked on drugs and died in his bathroom with 14 different substances in his system in 1977.
A nine-year-old Lisa Marie raced to be with him after hearing the commotion, but was held back from seeing her dad lying motionless on the floor.
She knew immediately that it wasn’t going to be so easy being brought up by her “strict” mum.
Lisa Marie wrote: “It was a one-two punch. He’s dead and now I’m stuck with her.”
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She claimed that, aged ten, actor Michael Edwards, 80, who dated Priscilla from 1978 to 1984, gave her even more reason to mourn the departure of her protective father.
In the book, she alleged that “he said he was going to teach me what was going to happen when I got older” before allegedly molesting her.
Edwards, who appeared in Terminator 2, admitted in his memoir, Priscilla, Elvis And Me, that he was attracted to Lisa Marie.
But he has never admitted to any sexual contact with her or been charged with any such crime.
With the mother and daughter relationship increasingly strained, Lisa Marie went to live in the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles, California, when she was a teenager.
She felt the cult was her “tribe” and “cool”.
Lisa Marie married her first husband, musician Danny Keough, at the Celebrity Centre in 1988.
They had two children — Benjamin and Riley.
He told me he was still a virgin. When he decided to first kiss me, he just did it
Lisa Marie Presley
The couple divorced six years later, by which time Lisa Marie was already infatuated with Jackson. Riley told Oprah: “She really was obsessed with him.
“I remember when he would come to the house and she would run to her bathroom and put her make-up on and panic and want to get herself all dressed up for him.”
In the memoir, Lisa Marie revealed that she had sex with Michael prior to their wedding in May 1994.
She claimed that it was the pop star’s first time, writing: “He told me he was still a virgin.
“When he decided to first kiss me, he just did it. He was instigating everything.
‘Controlling and calculating’
“The physical stuff started happening, which I was shocked at.”
The way Lisa Marie told it, the couple were deeply in love.
She said: “I was actually so happy. I’ve never been that happy again.”
But she had doubts about having children with Michael because he was, she claimed, so “controlling”, and that caused a rift.
Lisa Marie continued: “I figured Michael would have me have the children and then dump me, get me out of the picture.
“I could read him like a clock. I knew his nature, and he was very controlling and calculating.”
The divorce, though, had nothing to do with allegations that Michael preyed on the young boys who stayed over at his Neverland ranch.
Neither Riley nor Lisa Marie saw the singer, who was acquitted of sexual abuse in 2005 following a criminal trial, molesting young boys.
Michael died in 2009, aged 50, after becoming addicted to painkilling drugs.
It was a problem that was to beset Lisa Marie, too.
The star, whose third husband was actor Nicolas Cage, wrote in her memoir: “You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids.
“It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to keep taking them.”
The drugs, though, did not cause her death. The coroner ruled that she died from a heart attack as a result of a “small bowel obstruction”.
Finley and Harper celebrated their 16th birthday on Monday, the day before the autobiography was released.
They are close to Riley and are looked after by their musician dad. He and Lisa Marie divorced in 2021.
Despite the official medical ruling, it is possible the affliction of addiction did play an indirect part in ending the life of Elvis’s daughter.
Cocaine and alcohol were found in Benjamin’s bloodstream after his death and, ultimately, it was his departure from this world which led Lisa Marie to lose hope.
Riley concluded: “I knew this was the end of her.”
- From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough is in book shops now.
