Lisa Marie Presley Reveals in Posthumous Memoir She Was 'Always Worried' About Dad Elvis 'Dying' (Exclusive)

Lisa Marie Presley was only 9 years old when her father Elvis Presley died of complications from drug use in 1977, but for a long time she simmered in fear of losing him.

“I was always worried that my dad was going to die,” says Lisa Marie in her posthumous memoir From here to the Great Unknownexcerpt exclusively in this week’s cover of PEOPLE. “Sometimes I’d see him and he’d be out of his mind. Sometimes I’d find him passed out. I wrote a song with the line ‘I hope my dad doesn’t die’.”

Elsewhere in the memoir, which the star’s daughter Riley Keough completed by listening to recordings of memories her mother left behind after her death at age 54 in 2023, Lisa Marie describes what it was like to watch her father on stage as a child.

“Going to his shows was my favorite thing in the world,” she says. “I was so proud of him. He would take my hand and lead me on stage, and then I would be taken to wherever his place was on the stage, and I would be taken away from him and brought to wherever I was sitting in the audience. Usually with [Elvis’ father] Vernon.”

“The electricity of those shows. There’s nothing I’ve felt that’s even close to that feeling, ever,” she continues. “Electrifying is such a general word, but it really feels like that. I loved watching him perform. I had certain songs that I liked — ‘Hurt’ and ‘How Great Thou Art.’ I would ask him to sing me those songs and he would always say yes.”

Lisa Marie Presley recalls dad Elvis showing up at her parent-teacher conference in posthumous memoir (Exclusive)

Lisa Marie Presley with mom Priscilla Presley and dad Elvis Presley in 1968. Magma Agency/WireImage

Years later Elvis’ death, Lisa Marie abused drugs as a rebellious teenager. She later found stability for many years after marrying her first husband Danny Keough and giving birth to Riley at the age of 21.

“I fell in love with being a mom. I realized that I was called to take care of something else,” writes Lisa Marie in the book.

​Riley Keough Reveals the Bittersweet Process of Completing Lisa Marie Presley’s Mom’s Memoir: ‘I Rushed to Cry’ (Exclusive)

For more on how Riley Keough is putting the finishing touches on her mother Lisa Marie Presley’s powerful memoir, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

She divorced Danny in 1994, although the memoir details how he remained an anchor for her and their children. (In addition to Riley, Lisa Marie and Danny had a son, Benjamin, who died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27.)

“My dad was always my mom’s biggest protector and best friend,” Riley tells PEOPLE in an email interview. “I think their relationship was incredibly unique and I’m so grateful to have witnessed the unconditional love they had for one more.”

Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough at Club Lingerie in Hollywood, California.

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection/Getty

After giving birth to her twins Finley and Harper in 2008 (with Michael Lockwood, her husband from 2006 to 2021), Lisa Marie became addicted to prescription painkillers.

“It was a recreation for a couple of years, and then it wasn’t,” says Lisa Marie in the book. “It was an absolute addictive, big-league retreat thing.”

Riley Keough Says Lisa Marie Presley’s Mom ‘Died of a Broken Heart’ After Son Benjamin’s Death (Exclusive)

Lisa Marie Presley on the cover of PEOPLE’s October 7, 2024 issue.

Sometimes, Riley says in the book, “he sounds like he wants to burn the world to the ground; other times, she shows compassion and empathy—all aspects of the woman who was my mother, each of those strands, beautiful and broken, forged together in early trauma, collapsing together at the end of her life.”

Through From here to the Great UnknownRiley hopes her mom will turn into “a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, wild child, fierce friend, underrated artist, honest, funny, traumatized, joyful, grieving, all the things she’s been throughout her extraordinary life.”

“Because my mother was the daughter of Elvis Presley, she was constantly talked about, argued about and dissected,” says Riley. “What she wanted to do in her memoir, and I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine title’s idea of ​​her and reveal the core of who she was…I want to give voice to my mother in a way that she eluded while she was alive.”

From here to the Great Unknown Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough is out on October 8th and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education