LISA MARIE PRESLEY was no stranger to grief after losing her father Elvis and second husband Michael Jackson to the curse of drugs.
But the suicide of her only son Benjamin (27) in 2020 was more than the singer and actress could handle.
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Lisa Marie Presley’s new autobiography claims Michael Jackson lost his virginity to her when he was 35Credit: Getty
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Lisa Marie revealed that she had sex with Michael before their wedding in May 1994. Credit: Vevo
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As Lisa Marie recounts in her book, the couple was deeply in loveCredit: Vevo
In her autobiography, published this week – almost two years after she died in January 2023 aged 54 – she reveals she kept her son’s body on dry ice at home in Los Angeles for two months before arranging his funeral.
A grieving Lisa Marie even invited a tattoo artist to look at Benjamin’s remains and see where he had the ink on his arm so she could put it in the exact same spot.
Her posthumously published memoir entitled From Here To The Great Unknown was completed by Lisa Marie’s eldest daughter Riley Keough.
The book also claims that King of Pop Michael lost his virginity to Lisa Marie when he was 35.
READ MORE ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON
And although their marriage in the 1990s lasted only two years, Lisa Marie, who has been married four times, said it was her happiest relationship.
Just like her father and Michael, Lisa Marie — who died from a small bowel obstruction related to previous weight loss surgery — struggled with drug addiction.
At one point she was taking 80 opioid painkillers a day after being prescribed them after giving birth to her twin daughters, Harper and Finley, with fourth husband Michael Lockwood in 2008.
The autobiography also says that Lisa Marie, Elvis’ only child, was allegedly molested by one of her mother Priscilla’s boyfriends when she was ten years old.
It is clear from the book that she had a strained relationship with her mother, who divorced Elvis in 1973, four years before his death.
But Lisa Marie was devoted to her own children.
And Riley believes Benjamin’s fatal gunshot wound broke her mother’s spirit.
Court halts sale of Elvis Presley’s Graceland home ahead of foreclosure auction after Lisa Marie ‘defaulted on loan’
Speaking to talk show host Oprah Winfrey at Graceland about the book, Mad Max: Fury Road, actress Riley, 35, said: “My mom did her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was inside.
“My mom died physically as a result of the surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”
Lisa Marie’s decision to keep Benjamin’s body in a room in her Graceland home set at just over 12 degrees Celsius might sound strange, but Riley insists her mother “wasn’t a crazy woman”.
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After the death of her father, Lisa knew that it would not be so easy to raise her with her ‘strict’ mother PriscillaCredit: Getty
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Riley Keough, Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie and Benjamin Keough Credit: EPA
She simply couldn’t decide whether to bury her son in Graceland, near Elvis, or in their beloved Hawaii.
Instead of leaving him at a funeral home “far away,” Lisa Marie asked that he stay nearby.
Before he was buried, she also asked a tattoo artist to get her and Riley inked in the exact same spot that Benjamin had.
Riley recalled, “He’s like, ‘OK, do you have any photos?’ and she said: ‘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 that Benjamin should be buried in the family plot at Graceland.
Reading the memoirs, it is obvious that such bizarre actions were normal in the life of Presley’s heiress.
‘My Father’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 shoot each other.
The legendary singer, who sold half a billion records, was an unstable character, and Lisa Marie recalls: “You could always feel the intensity of my father.
“If it was good intensity, it was amazing. If it was bad, watch out f***.”
Elvis was addicted to drugs and died in his bathroom with 14 different substances in his body in 1977.
Nine-year-old Lisa Marie ran to be with him after hearing the commotion, but was restrained to see her father lying motionless on the floor.
She immediately knew that it would not be so easy to raise her with her “strict” mother.
Lisa Marie wrote: “It was a one-two punch. He’s dead and now I’m stuck with her.”
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Lisa Marie was nine years old when dad Elvis died in his bathroom with 14 different substances in his body in 1977. Credit: Getty
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Lisa Marie married her first husband, musician Danny Keough, at the Celebrity Center in 1988. Credit: Getty
She claimed that ten-year-old actor Michael Edwards, 80, who dated Priscilla from 1978 to 1984, had given her even more reason to grieve the departure of her protective father.
She stated in the book that he “said he would teach me what would happen when I got older” before he allegedly molested her.
Edwards, who appeared in Terminator 2, admitted in his memoir Priscilla, Elvis And Me that he was attracted to Lisa Marie.
But he never admitted to any sexual contact with her or was accused of any such crime.
With an increasingly strained mother-daughter relationship, Lisa Marie went to live at the Scientology Hall of Fame 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 Center in 1988.
They had two children – Benjamin and Riley.
He told me he was still a virgin. When he decided to kiss me for the first time, he just did it
Lisa Marie Presley
The couple divorced six years later, by which time Lisa Marie was already in love with Jackson. Riley told Oprah, “She was really obsessed with him.
“I remember when he would come to the house and she would run into her bathroom and put on her makeup and panic and want to dress up for him.”
In the memoir, Lisa Marie revealed that she had sex with Michael before their wedding in May 1994.
She claimed that it was the pop star’s first time, and wrote: “He told me he was still a virgin.”
“When he decided to kiss me for the first time, he just did it. He encouraged everything.
‘Control and calculation’
“Physical things started happening, which shocked me.”
As Lisa Marie said, the couple was deeply in love.
She said: “I was actually so happy. I’ve never been so happy.”
But she had doubts about having children with Michael because, she claimed, he was so “controlling” and this caused a rift.
Lisa Marie continued: “I thought Michael was going to want me to have kids and then kick me, get me out of the picture.
“I could read it like clockwork. I knew his nature and he was very controlled and calculated.”
The divorce, however, had nothing to do with allegations that Michael preyed on young boys who stayed at his Neverland ranch.
Neither Riley nor Lisa Marie saw the singer, who was acquitted of sexual abuse and molestation of a young man in 2005 after a criminal trial.
Michael died in 2009, aged 50, after becoming addicted to painkillers.
It was a problem that befell Lisa Marie as well.
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 victim to opioids.
“It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to continue taking them.”
However, the drugs did not cause her death. The coroner concluded that she died of a heart attack as a result of “an obstruction of the small intestine.”
Finley and Harper celebrated their 16th birthdays on Monday, the day before the autobiography was released.
They are close to Riley and are cared for by their musician dad. He and Lisa Marie divorced in 2021.
Despite the official medical solution, it is possible that the disease of addiction played an indirect role in ending the life of Elvis’ daughter.
Cocaine and alcohol were found in Benjamin’s bloodstream after his death and, ultimately, it was his departure from this world that caused 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 bookstores now.
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