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Lisa Marie Presley was so heartbroken by the loss of her son Benjamin Keough that she kept his body in her home for two months after his death — even inviting a tattoo artist in to see him so Lisa Marie could get matching ink.
That’s just one of the jaw-dropping revelations in Presley’s new memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” which was finished by her actress daughter Riley Keough after the 54-year-old’s death in January 2023.
In the book, Lisa Marie reveals she had to force herself to “fight” to stay alive for her remaining children, Riley and twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood, now 16. That meant not saying goodbye to Benjamin right away — partly because she couldn’t decide whether to bury him in Hawaii or at Graceland, the Memphis estate where Elvis died and is buried.
“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,” Lisa Marie writes. “I found a very empathetic funeral home owner … She said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben to you.’
The room was kept at 55 degrees to preserve his body, she writes, adding that she “got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there.”
Riley and Lisa Marie decided to honor Benjamin by getting tattoos that matched his — he had his sister’s name inscribed on his collarbone and his mother’s inked on his hand.
Riley got her brother’s tattooed on her collarbone, and a tattoo artist was called to the home for Lisa Marie to have his name added to her hand. When the tattoo artist asked if they had any photos of Benjamin’s tattoos so he could match up the font and positioning, Lisa Marie replied, “No, but I can show you.”
Writes Riley: “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.”
For her part, Lisa Marie also knew it was odd. “I think it would scare the living f–king piss out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me,” she writes.
Soon after the tattoo day, Riley recalls, everyone “got the vibe” that Benjamin wanted to be laid to rest.
“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!”
The family held a funeral for Benjamin in Malibu. New Age author Deepak Chopra led the ceremony and Riley said she was forced to keep her eyes closed the whole way through, as she was “struggling to stay alive.”
Benjamin was buried at Graceland, alongside Elvis; Lisa Marie would later be buried there as well.
Riley writes at length about her brother’s struggle with mental health and how he often went on drinking binges, adding that she does not believe that he “truly” wished to die.
She and her mom went through his phone after his death, searching for answers
“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,’” Riley writes. “It’s heartbreaking to me that he only realized he might need help just two weeks before he killed himself.”