Lisa Marie Presley’s new memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, includes several surprising revelations, including details about what happened following her son Benjamin’s 2020 death. In the book, which her daughter, Riley Keough, worked to complete after Lisa Marie’s death in 2023, Lisa Marie said she kept Benjamin’s body at home for two months so she was able to have enough time to say goodbye.
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Lisa Marie was always open about her grief over losing Benjamin.
Benjamin was 27 years old when he died by suicide in 2020, and his mother shared a sweet tribute to him as she grieved the loss.
“The depth of the pain is suffocating and bottomless without you every moment of every day. I will never be the same,” she wrote at the time. “Please wait for me my love, and hold my hand while I stay to continue to protect and raise your little sisters and to be here for Riley. I know you would want that.”
She said goodbye to Benjamin much like the way she said goodbye to her father, Elvis Presley.
Elvis died at the age of 42 in 1977, when Lisa Marie was just 9 years old. At the time, the body of the legendary singer was kept in an open casket for two days at Graceland, and both his family and the public were able to take their time saying goodbye.
In the memoir, Riley wrote about how important it was for her mom to do something similar after Benjamin’s death, because Lisa Marie knew she wanted to “have ample time to say goodbye to him, the same way she’d done with her dad.”
A funeral home owner was able to help Lisa Marie keep Benjamin at home.
They were able to use dry ice to keep Benjamin’s body preserved, and she was required to keep the room he was in at 55 degrees. She wasn’t just saying goodbye to Benjamin, though; she was also debating where he should be buried, which she said is why she “took so long” with his body.
“I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there. I think it would scare the living f—ing p— out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me,” she wrote, via People.
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Lisa Marie was comforted by being able to 'parent' Benjamin for a little longer.
“I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could become okay with laying him to rest,” she added.
Ultimately, Lisa Marie chose to bury Benjamin at Graceland, and when she died less than three years later, she was buried beside him.
She and Riley chose a unique (but sweet) way to remember him.
Before Benjamin was buried, Riley and Lisa Marie decided to get his name tattooed in the same places where Benjamin had tattooed their names on his body, and in order to get the placement exactly right, Lisa Marie brought the tattoo artist to view her late son’s body — what Riley called a “top five” most absurd moment in her life.
After that, Riley said that their family “all got this vibe from my brother that he didn’t want his body in this house anymore” and that was that.
The loss of a child is incredibly difficult, and it’s no wonder that it’s one Lisa Marie felt so deeply.
