Riley Keough is trying to save mom Lisa Marie Presley’s legacy - and clean up her family’s tragedies
Riley Keough is trying to save mom Lisa Marie Presley’s legacy - and clean up her family’s tragedies https://t.co/jxcIpyghef pic.twitter.com/cfPBXY1SGb
- Page Six (@PageSix) June 1, 2024
• Sources say a year and a half after Lisa Marie Presley’s sudden death, daughter and Graceland heir Riley Keough is "living with ghosts." A source said: "Riley has a huge career while she bears the responsibility of forming what’s going to be perceived as her mom’s legacy."
• She has been going through her mother’s old tapes and notebooks on a quest to finish Lisa Marie’s autobiography.
• “There are hundreds of hours of Lisa’s thoughts and dreams,” a source familiar with the book revealed. “And Riley has to frame the book in a way that is both accurate and compassionate...It’s a Herculean effort. She’s going to have a lot of input on how people perceive Lisa’s legacy forever. That’s how difficult this is."
• The as-yet-untitled book will be released on October 15th and Page Six learned the memoir is set be honored with a celebration at Graceland, where Riley's mother, brother and grandfather are buried.
• Among the issues Keough will have to figure out how to cover in the memoir is her mother’s battle with drugs, as well as her mother’s past marriages - to Keough’s father, Danny; singer Michael Jackson, actor Nicolas Cage, and musician Michael Lockwood, with whom Presley was embroiled in a fraught custody and legal battle up until her death.
• Keough has also been attempting to maintain a dignified relationship with her grandmother, Priscilla Presley, who contested the “authenticity and validity” of Lisa Marie’s will after her daughter’s death. The will had removed Priscilla as trustee and put her oldest and adult children, Riley and Benjamin, in charge. Benjamin died by suicide in 2020, leaving Riley as sole trustee of her mother's estate. Keough eventually agreed to pay her grandmother a lump sum of $1 million, plus $400,000 in legal fees to give up her claim to the estate.
As Keough told Vanity Fair last August, “We are a family, but there’s also a huge business side of our family. So I think that there was clarity that needed to be had. Clarity has been had.”
• “Riley’s a pacifist. She’s compartmentalized - she only has one grandmother, so this is her choice,” the book source revealed.
• Regarding the Graceland auction drama, which took a bizarre turn when apparent Nigerian scammers took responsibility, a well-placed Graceland insider told Page Six that they are not so sure the Nigerian scammer is behind the fraud. Insiders previously told TMZ that Graceland officials believe one individual is behind the fraud, and they know that person's identity.
• A similar stunt had occurred during probate proceedings for Lisa Marie’s estate in California.
“Someone tried to insist that Lisa owed them a debt, but the judge threw it out and said it was nonsense,” said the insider. “Normally things like this happen from someone who’s on the edges [of Elvis’s estate] or wanting to be on the inside. I have real thoughts about who this is. I just feel so sad that Riley has had to go through this.”
• Despite all her family troubles, Keough remains happily married to stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen with whom she shares baby daughter Tupelo - named for Elvis’ Mississippi hometown. She is also extremely close to younger sisters, 15 year old twins Harper and Finley.
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