Lisa Marie Presley Memoir Recap/Discussion: Chapter 6 (Pt Two)
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Previous recaps: Chapters 1 & 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 (pt one)
Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir From Here to the Great Unknown was 85% done and spread across 16 tapes when she passed away in January 2023. The book consists of Lisa's recollections, daughter Riley Keough's assessments, memories and clarifications, as well as occasional input from Danny Keough, Lisa Marie’s first husband and best friend (and Riley's father).
This chapter is when some notable omissions start happening so I do my best to at least kind of fact check based on previously reported news.
Chapter Six: Ten Years (pt 2)
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• Lisa was passionately in love with a musician, John Oszajca, whom she was with for two years, when she left him for Nicolas Cage. They were engaged but Oszajca was six years younger and the fact that she was still very close to Danny and had two kids made things hard for them. They broke up when Riley was thirteen and Lisa often wondered what would have been if they had stayed together.
• There were further attempts to separate Lisa Marie and Danny by “people” close to Priscilla. Lisa was told Danny had sold Lisa out to the press. The “people” close to Priscilla hired private investigators to follow Danny for months. Danny- at that moment on a one-person road trip and gambling in Vegas with a PI tailing him- received a call from two friends, Cyndi Lauper and Angela McClusky, to come hang out at Sundance. The PI lost him in his travels despite Danny nursing a motorcycle injury and wearing a top hat(???). The guy told Lisa Marie that they had no idea where he was, Danny stole a car and fled. Danny went to Sundance and joined Cyndi and Angela at a party for the band Air. They would run into Lisa and her boyfriend and Lisa- thinking he had fled- was shocked when Danny sauntered over to say hi. Riley notes Lisa's private investigator had lost Danny, but Danny had found Lisa, like he always did.
• Lisa's relationship with Nicolas Cage was short-lived and Riley believes it was a distraction from the break up with Oszajca. Lisa even went back and forth between Oszajca and Cage, Riley remembers walking into Lisa Marie’s room and one day seeing one man and the next day seeing the other. Lisa claims she and Cage were really in love although Riley is skeptical. Cage and Lisa had a lot of fun together and he came in a different car every time he came by to visit with diamonds for Lisa Marie.
• On one of the weekend trips on a yacht to Catalina Island, Lisa Marie and Cage got into a fight and her $60K engagement ring went overboard. They couldn't recover it but Cage bought her another more expensive one.
• Lisa and Benjamin loved horror movies while Riley was traumatized by them. Lisa would also show up at their school in a Michael Myers costume, and the kids would wear the mask and chase her around the house.
• After 108 days, the Presley/Cage marriage was over.
• Lisa felt a connection to the island of Hawaii and was able to think more clearly there.
• A big party was thrown for Riley's 16th birthday in Hawaii on the beach with Riley and her friends, Benjamin and his friends, Lisa and her future husband Michael Lockwood, Danny and more friends. Riley remembers her dad getting her sixteen presents. A performer tried to pull Riley and Danny for a father-daughter dance and they were horrified- especially since Danny was several drinks in- but Lisa Marie was adamant because she thought it would be hilarious. They danced to Bob Carlisle's “Butterfly Kisses” and everyone cracked up, including Riley and her father. She notes her father has the same incredible laugh as her brother, one that makes you want to laugh with them.
• Riley remembers Lisa always had her own bottle of Dom Perignon that no one was allowed to touch. Lisa Marie loved to dance to 70s music and made people dance with her. Lisa also loved Britney Spears’ Toxic and she took hip hop dance lessons and made Riley do it with her. Lisa often hung out with Riley and her friends, saying “your friends are my friends!”
• That night in Hawaii, around 3am, Lisa and Riley bonded and watched the stars while everyone was partying. Eventually they realized they lost Danny, as was always the norm when they were partying. Riley was worried and Ben and his friends went to find him (they did not find him but found a toad). Lisa never worried about Danny and wasn't worried then, cracking “he'll outlive us all.” Danny eventually popped up through lava rocks shirtless, and this kind of resurfacing was also typical, since he would always return with a wild story.
• As Riley retired from her party, she remembers Lisa and Danny dancing together in their own world laughing, and she likens her parents to pirates. Riley could never out-party her parents, and she noticed her dad had removed the rest of his clothes while drinking champagne with the security guards as the party carried on.
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• Riley suggests Michael Lockwood was Lisa Marie’s last chance at a normal life. Lisa felt Lockwood could help her stop running away from stability.
• As Lisa considered getting married again, she got closer to Priscilla, not just for Riley and Benjamin but for her own sake. The song “Raven” was written for Priscilla and their relationship, which meant the world to Priscilla. Lisa wanted to forgive Priscilla and she wanted to own her part in their fractured relationship. Lisa and Priscilla became very close and Priscilla would be so excited to join Lisa on tour.
Click to view• Lisa married Lockwood in 2006 in Japan in a traditional Japanese wedding [note: omitted in this story is Lisa Marie completely losing her shit after the wedding because Lockwood “forgot” to sign the prenup she sent him, as revealed in the divorce proceedings]. Danny was the best man.
• At the rehearsal dinner before the wedding, Lisa had Riley come for a smoke and walk with her. Lisa told Riley she was having a panic attack and she didn't know why and she felt stuck at the table and needed to go. At sixteen, Riley didn't know what was going on but she thought maybe her mom was afraid of commitment, or maybe she knew this was the beginning of the last chapter. Despite that, Lisa got married and Riley remembered how beautiful she was. As everyone partied and did karaoke, she remembers the family's happiness and how lucky everyone was to be there together.
• Lisa Marie desperately wanted more children and did IVF and got pregnant. Lisa moved out to Montecito to enjoy her pregnancy in private. She sensed who the twins would be before they were born- Harper would be delicate, feminine and strong, Finley sassy and stubborn and sweet- and she was right, that is who the twins are. Riley notes while Lisa was a hurricane, everyone noticed how sweet all of her children were. At nineteen, Riley felt like the twins were hers too because she took care of them as well.
• Lisa had a c-section and Riley and Lockwood were the only ones there. Riley spoke a made up language from childhood between her, Lisa and Ben to comfort Lisa as she recovered, a similar little thing Lisa did with Elvis. Riley helped with the twins at home, sleeping on a cot in the same room and taking burping duties.
• Everyone was so close, and Riley notes Lisa was instinctive with what her children wanted, like knowing exactly how the twins wanted to be held. Riley says “I don't know where she got it from, I don't think it was something that had been passed on to her necessarily. I think she was born that way. Circumstances shape a person but there's a part of you that's your spirit. And my mom's spirit was brimming with maternal love.”
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• Since Lisa was so young with Riley and Benjamin, she wanted a chance to do it right with the twins with less nannies and spending more time with her kids hands-on. Riley says her and Ben's childhoods were perfect and still Lisa Marie wanted to do a better job and be more present. Lisa chose to sell the house and move to the England countryside so the twins could have a beautiful, normal life.
• Riley calls this one of the most heartbreaking parts of the last ten years of Lisa Marie’s life. Lisa wanted so badly to do a better job as a mother but her addiction issues came back. Riley says there may have been a genetic component to Lisa's addictions- noting Elvis’ own addiction started with pure intentions, just doing what the doctor told him to sleep and wake up. Regardless of the reason, Lisa Marie’s addictions sat dormant for most of her life and flared when the twins were born and everything burned down.
• Lisa Marie's life began to feel out of control. She had so much staff that she didn't know basic things like how to turn on the television. She had no awareness about money and one day found out staff were misusing her credit cards and most of this staff were also her best friends [note: omitted in this recollection is Priscilla allegedly getting a $900k salary from Elvis estate without doing any work for it and the other estate trustee taking off the top for himself, all without Lisa Marie’s knowledge, which Lisa eventually removed both as trustees of the estate over, and she ended up suing the non-Priscilla trustee for mismanagement]. Riley for some reason suggests the friends weren't thieves but lazy and it fed Lisa Marie’s paranoia that everyone around her had an agenda and she was unlovable.
• Lisa Marie, after her ten years of happiness, exiled everyone regardless of how big or small the offense. One by one, Lisa Marie fired everyone and everything during their time at Hidden Hills- security, friends, religion, people she had known for years. Lisa Marie just “suddenly” wanted everything gone [note: completely omitted is the fact that Lisa Marie also began questioning scientology and its role in her life and finances. After a failed showdown with cult leader David Miscaviage, Lisa immediately left the cult and took her entire family with her. One ex-member spoke to Riley on the phone after this confrontation who told him to take those “motherfuckers” down].
• The only people who remained in the aftermath were Lisa Marie’s children, Michael Lockwood, and Danny [note: a notable omission from this circle is Priscilla. Lisa was allegedly estranged from Priscilla until her death due to Priscilla allegedly stealing money and taking Lockwood's side in the eventual divorce; they would only see each other at business events for Graceland, and when Priscilla would monitor visitations during the custody battle with Lockwood. Lisa also told journalist Tony Ortega she made Priscilla leave scientology with her, which Priscilla denied at the time].
• Riley noted that while her mother desperately wanted friends, her heart never emotionally recovered from the trauma at Graceland and after 40 years of letdowns, people betraying her, and people using her for her money and status, Lisa was done with everything and wanted to be alone.
• Lisa Marie's first independent action was to leave the house alone (which she never did) and go to a movie. She watched Into the Wild by herself. Riley was concerned but found it serendipitous that Lisa's first movie in independence was a film about an idealistic man finding his identity through isolation, only to meet his end in tragedy.
• Lisa says she can be really mean and really angry, and it comes from a place of trying to protect herself from hurt. She says she learned from the best: Michael Jackson. She says she was like that since a child, in one instance icing out her aunt in anger. Lisa says she was very sensitive, scared and not secure in who she was. She didn't know who she really was, had no family, childhood or real identity. She one day woke up about a lot of things going on around her for years with a lot of people wanting her quiet and manageable.
• Unbeknownst to everyone, Lisa Marie had developed a serious addiction to the opioids that were given to her after the birth of the twins. The chapter ends with Lisa explaining how opioids made her love everyone and everything was fine.
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[OP Note: Let's talk about the elephant in the room. This chapter completely omits and ignores scientology’s part in Lisa Marie’s sudden upheaval of her life before she moved to England. A former scientologist said this was certainly done to avoid harassment, retaliation, and litigation from the cult towards not only Riley and the extended Presley family but also the publisher.
Lisa herself allegedly pulled back from any private and public criticisms of her former religion due to supposed threats and concern for herself, her family, friends and associates still in (her former sister-in-law has since left the cult as well). Beyond the posthumous interview that confirmed her departure from scientology which Lisa did not authorize to be released before her death, Lisa did write two songs obviously about her break from the cult, and they were featured on her final album, Storm & Grace. This is now her final word on Scientology, unless Riley releases an expanded edition of the memoir in the future:
Lisa Marie said in the posthumous interview that her family left scientology with her and that circle does appear to be- as confirmed by Riley's vague recollections in the memoir- her children Riley, Benjamin, Harper and Finley, then-husband Michael Lockwood, mother Priscilla and though not specifically mentioned by Lisa in her interview, Danny Keough (which may have been an intentional omission for protection since his entire family is in the cult). Excluding Priscilla and Lockwood, the rest of the aforementioned people would remain close until Benjamin and Lisa's eventual deaths. The family- now including Priscilla and Lockwood- remains incredibly close and publicly united to this day, with Riley saying last week on her recent book tour that she, Danny, and the twins live in three houses five minutes from each other and see each other regularly.
So where is the extended Presley family regarding scientology today? Who knows, it appears no one wants to publicly discuss it, and understandably so- Scientology would likely harass and alienate not only the family but friends and family still involved in the cult.
Here's what we do (vaguely) know about the rest of the family. I do not claim to know anything with confirmation, this is all from interviews and talk from former scientologists, and all information was posted publicly:
In a Vanity Fair piece on Riley, it was confirmed that despite [via Wikipedia] being "raised in the Church of Scientology...as of 2023 [Riley] identifies as spiritual and not affiliated with any church," although she still to this day continues to associate and be close with her longtime childhood friends still in the cult (while publicly talking about being in therapy and her mental health status, big no-no’s in scientology). Her husband seems to be a never-in.
Benjamin left the cult with his family and reportedly was an outspoken critic of Scientology before his death. He allegedly told friends Scientology broke up and messed up his family (however, Benjamin was also still very close with Riley's, and his, childhood friends until his death). Apparently one of the twins went on Instagram Live months ago and said no one in the family are scientologists.
Danny was reported recently to still be an ardent supporter of Scientology, however a former student of a scientology school Danny's mother used to run said on reddit several months ago that it was an open secret at the school circa 2017/8 that both Danny and Riley were quietly out, although she wasn't sure if Danny went back in grief after his son's death. He was living with Lisa Marie at the time of her death, was very close with her and participated in her memoir, causing former members to speculate on his own status in the cult since Lisa Marie was clearly out and gone and he would not be allowed to associate with her at all if he were still a loyal follower.
Priscilla's son Navarone said in a mid 2024 YouTube interview that both Priscilla and Riley were no longer scientologists, although they still have scientologists in their social circles. Aaron from the Growing Up Scientology YouTube channel said Riley and Priscilla have more leeway than other members as celebrities and Riley in particular is likely staying silent about scientology to protect her still-in friends and family. A former member on reddit said Riley herself may be essentially “Schrödinger's Scientologist-” technically still “in” because she has not been declared suppressive or spoken out negatively and may even still believe in some values, but she is no longer giving money, taking courses, following the cult life, etc, which was pretty much what her mother was doing at some point after 2008 as she quietly and gradually slipped away.
But who knows. All of this was publicly posted and could be bs. But that's some background and insight into what happened that the book omits, what may be happening now, and why Riley and the publisher may have chosen to omit the subject matter.]
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'Til Wednesday with all the trigger warnings. It gets bleak from here.
Source: me and my handy dandy book and audible account, pics: one, two, three, four, five, six, YouTube: one, two, three