Lisa Marie Presley ‘kept son Benjamin’s body at home’ for two months after his death

Lisa Marie Presley kept her son’s body in her home for months after his suicide, according to her daughter.

Lisa Marie Presley kept her son’s body in her home for months after his suicide, according to her daughter.

Elvis’s only child, who passed away last year at 54, was devastated by the loss of Benjamin, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at 27 in August 2020. In her newly released memoir, co-written by Lisa Marie’s daughter Riley Keough, the book tells how she could not bring herself to bury her right away. Instead, she chose to keep him in a “separate casitas bedroom” for two months.

The memoir offers a raw glimpse into Lisa Marie’s unending grief. “There’s no law in California that says you have to bury someone immediately,” Lisa wrote. “I found a very empathetic funeral home owner… she said, ‘We’ll bring Ben Ben to you.’”

Lisa Marie goes on to describe how her son's body was kept at 55 degrees to preserve it and how, over time, she grew accustomed to caring for him in the room before he was finally laid to rest. Benjamin was later buried at Graceland, the family’s iconic estate, alongside his grandfather, Elvis Presley.

She would be buried next to him following her own death last year. The memoir reveals that Lisa Marie struggled with the aftermath of Benjamin's death, confessing that she had to force herself to "fight" to stay alive for her remaining children. She acknowledged how unusual her actions were, writing: “I think it would scare the living f****** p*** out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me.”

One of the hardest decisions she faced was choosing where to bury Benjamin. Torn between Hawaii and Graceland, she eventually chose Memphis. Actress Riley, who collaborated on the memoir alongside her mother before her death, said the project was an effort to capture her mum as a "three-dimensional human being."

The memoir, called "From Here to the Great Unknown," offers an intimate glimpse into Lisa Marie's life. Riley said of the book: "I aim not only to honour my mother but to tell a human story in what I know is an extraordinary circumstance."

The actress, along with her twin sisters Harper and Finley, now 16, worked closely with Lisa in her final years. In one particular moment detailed in the book, Lisa and Riley both got tattoos to honour Benjamin. As he had their names on his body, they chose to have his name inked on theirs.

When the tattoo artist asked for a photo of Benjamin to match the design, Lisa said, “No, but I can show you,” leading the artist to see her son’s body in the adjacent room. “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…" Riley writes in the book. “I've had an extremely absurd life, but this moment is in the top five.”

Shortly after, Lisa Marie laid her son to rest. She was buried on January 22 last year at Graceland the Memphis home where she lived with her father as a child that has become a museum, tourist attraction and shrine for Elvis fans.

In the immediate aftermath of Lisa Marie's death, it appeared that a major legal fight would ensue over Elvis's estate. Four days after her funeral, her mother, Pricilla Presley, filed legal documents disputing a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie's living trust. The papers had removed Elvis’s ex-wife, 79, and a former business manager as trustees and replaced them with her two eldest children.

But Priscilla and Keough, who is now acting as sole trustee, agreed to a settlement in May last year. The LA medical examiner's office ruled that Lisa Marie died of natural causes and said that the cardiac arrest was caused by a "small bowel obstruction” caused during weight loss surgery.