Riley Keough says mother Lisa Marie Presley died of ‘broken heart’ over son Benjamin’s death

‘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,’ Keough said

Riley Keough has opened up about how her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, handled the death of her son, Keough’s brother Benjamin.

The 35-year-old Daisy Jones & The Six star recently spoke out about Benjamin’s death by suicide in 2020, which occurred when he was only 27 years old. Her mother, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, died three years later when she was 53 of natural causes although a medical examiner determined a small bowel obstruction caused her cardiac arrest.

In addition to Riley and Benjamin, whom she shared with her ex-husband Danny Keough, Presley is survived by her 15-year-old twins Finley and Harper who she had with her ex-husband Michael Lockwood.

“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,” Keough told People magazine in a new interview. “My mom physically died from the after-effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”

Presley has previously discussed the death of her son in an essay published in People back in 2022 in honor of National Grief Awareness Day. She wrote that people do not “get over” or “move on” from the loss of a loved one.

“Today is ‘National Grief Awareness Day,’ and since I have been living in the horrific reality of its unrelenting grips since my son’s death two years ago, I thought I would share a few things to be aware of in regard to grief for anyone who is interested. If not to help yourself but maybe to help another who is grieving …” her essay began.

Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley in 2017 (Getty Images for ELLE)

After Presley’s death, she left part of her memoir titled From Here to the Great Unknown unfinished, which was left to Keough to complete after she promised her she would. To finish the book, Keough would listen to tapes her mom recorded, noting that her brother’s death “was incredibly difficult to write about, as was my mom’s descent into addiction.  And her own death, of course.”

Both Presley and Keough previously took to social media on the anniversary of Benjamin’s death. Presley shared a photo of him and their matching tattoos, which she said they got on Mother’s Day “several years ago.”

She captioned the photo: “Several years ago, on Mother’s Day, my son and I got these matching tattoos on our feet.

“It’s a Celtic eternity knot, symbolizing that we will be connected eternally. We carefully picked it to represent our eternal love and our eternal bond,” she added, alongside a broken heart emoji.

Keough marked the two-year anniversary of her brother’s death by posting an old photo of them together on her wedding day. “Not an hour goes by where I don’t think of you and miss you,” she wrote at the time, adding: “It’s been two years today since you left and I still can’t believe you’re not here. You are so loved my Ben Ben.”