​​Riley Keough Reveals Bittersweet Process to Finish Mom Lisa Marie Presley's Memoir: 'I Burst into Tears' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Lisa Marie Presley’s PEOPLE cover.

Lisa Marie Presleywas only 4 days old when she made her flashy introduction to the world, cradled in the pink-clad arms of her mom,Priscilla Presley, as her dad, rock and roll legendElvis Presley, pushed them in a wheelchair while leaving a Memphis hospital.

Outside, throngs of fans clamored for a glimpse of Elvis’ daughter, the closest thing to American royalty.

From that point on, the public interest in Lisa Marie’s life — from her triumphs to her private struggles — never faded until herdeath at age 54in 2023, from asmall-bowel obstruction that developedafter she’d undergone bariatric surgery several years prior. But now, for the first time, her story is being told in her own words.

For more on Riley Keough finishing her mom Lisa Marie Presley’s powerful memoir, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.

After Lisa Marie’s death the star’s daughter, actressRiley Keough, finished the memoir she’d promised her mom that she would help write.

As she wrestled with her grief, Riley — the sole trustee of Lisa Marie’s estate and the owner of the family’s home Graceland — listened to tapes of memories her mother had recorded. The result wasFrom Here to the Great Unknown, out Oct. 8.

“Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected,” Riley, 35, tells PEOPLE in an exclusive email interview for this week’s cover story. “What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headline idea of her and reveal the core of who she was. To turn her into a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, a wild child, a fierce friend, an underrated artist, frank, funny, traumatized, joyous, grieving, everything that she was throughout her remarkable life. I want to give voice to my mother in a way that eluded her while she was alive.”

Lisa Marie Presley and dad Elvis in 1970.Frank Carroll/Sygma via Getty

And to do so, Riley (Lisa Marie’s daughter from her first marriage, to musician Danny Keough) filled her own ears with that voice, listening to tapes of her mom talking about Elvis; her romantic relationships; the balm of motherhood; thedevastating death of her son Benjamin, Riley’s brother; and the redemptive birth of her granddaughter, Riley’s 2-year-old daughterTupelo.

“The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was,” Riley says of her mother. “Depending on the day and her mood, she can sound locked-in or distracted, vulnerable and open or annoyed and closed off, hopeful, angry, everything. You hear her in all her complications.”

Through the memoir, Riley wants readers to see her mother clearly, perhaps for the first time.

“I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family,” she says. “[My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.”

Lisa Marie Presley on the cover of PEOPLE.

Here, read portions of Riley’s introduction toFrom Here to the Great Unknown, featured exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE cover story.

In the years before she died, my mother, Lisa Marie Presley, began writing her memoir. Though she tried various approaches, and sat for many book interviews, she couldn’t figure out how to write about herself. She didn’t find herself interesting, even though, of course, she was. She didn’t like talking about herself. She was insecure. She wasn’t sure what her value to the public was other than being Elvis’s daughter. She was so wracked with self-criticism that working on the book became incredibly difficult for her. I don’t think she fundamentally understood how or why her story should be told.

And yet, she felt a burning desire to tell it.

Harper Lockwood, Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla Presley, Riley Keough and Finley Lockwood in 2022.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

After she’d grown exceedingly frustrated, she said to me, “Pookie, I don’t know how to write my book anymore. Can you write it with me?”

“Of course I can,” I said.

The last 10 years of her life had been so brutally hard that she was only able to look back on everything through that lens. She felt I could have a more holistic view of her life than she could. So I agreed to help her with it, not thinking much of the commitment, assuming we would write it together over time.

A month later, she died.

I began listening to her speak.

It was incredibly painful but I couldn’t stop. It was like she was in the room, talking to me. I instantly felt like a child again and I burst into tears.

My mommy. The tone of her voice.

I was eight years old again, riding in our car. Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” came on the radio, and my dad pulled over and made us all get out to dance on the side of the road. I thought of my mom’s beautiful smile. Her laugh. I thought of my dad trying to resuscitate her lifeless body when he found her.

Then I was back in my car seat watching my mom’s face in the rearview mirror as she sang along to Aretha Franklin, our car barreling down the Pacific Coast Highway with the windows open.

Lisa Marie Presley and son Benjamin Keough in 2012.Copetti/Photofab/Shutterstock

I wanted her back.

The early parts of the book are mostly her voice — in the tapes she speaks at length about her Graceland childhood, the death of her father [in 1977, when Lisa Marie was 9], the dreadful aftermath, her relationship with her mother, her difficult teen years. She’s frank and funny about my father, Danny Keough. She talks openly about her relationship with Michael Jackson. She’s painfully candid about her later drug addiction and about the perils of fame.

There are times, too, where it sounds like she wants to burn the world to the ground; other times, she displays compassion and empathy — all facets of the woman who was my mother, each of those strands, beautiful and broken, forged together in early trauma, crashing together at the end of her life.

The tapes are raw, with all the starts and stops that people have when they speak. Wherever possible, I wrote it exactly as she said it. In other cases, I’ve edited my mother’s words for clarity or to get at what I know was the root of what she was trying to convey. What mattered most to me was feeling like the end result sounded like her, that I could instantly recognize her in the pages, and I can.

But there are things she doesn’t talk about in the tapes, things she didn’t get to, especially in the later part of her life. We saw each other five times a week throughout my life, and we lived together full-time until I was 25. Where there are gaps in her story, I fill them in.

The greatest strength for this aspect of the book was also one of my mother’s biggest flaws: She was constitutionally incapable of hiding anything from me.

Everyone who ever met her experienced a force — passion, protection, loyalty, love and a deep engagement with a spirit that was incredibly powerful. Whatever spiritual force my grandfather possessed undoubtedly ran through my mother’s veins. When you were with her, you could feel it.

I am aware that the recordings my mother left are a gift. So often, all that’s left of a loved one is a saved and re-saved voicemail, a short video on a phone, some favorite photos. I take the privilege of these tapes very seriously. I wanted this book to be as intimate as all those hours I spent listening to her, like the nights she’d spend in bed with us listening to coyotes howl.

In his poem “Binsey Poplars (felled 1879),” Gerard Manley Hopkins writes of that set of chopped-down trees, “After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.”

I want this book to make clear the “beauty been” that was my mother.

source: people.com