Riley Keough revealed that her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, kept her brother’s body in their home for two months to cope with his passing. She details this in the posthumous memoir, From Here To The Great Unknown, noting that the body was kept on dry ice and at cold temperatures in the house’s casitas bedroom.
Some people found this detail disturbing and took to social media to share their thoughts, but Riley did not have it and chose to respond. She noted that her late mother would not have cared for people’s opinions about how she preferred to handle her loss.
Riley Keough gives reasons for Lisa Marie Presley’s bizarre decision
Riley’s brother Benjamin committed suicide in 2020, which was the same year as the COVID-19 lockdown; hence, transporting his body to Graceland and burying him was not going to be easy. Lisa Marie was also undecided about Hawaii as her other option for Benjamin’s burial site, and this further slowed things down.
Lisa Marie was also concerned about the safety of her late child’s body and thought it was safer at her house than at the hands of other people due to their Presley name. She also felt it was within her right to preserve Benjamin’s body herself, as no law in California demanded an immediate burial for deceased people.
Riley Keough’s brother was eventually buried at Graceland
Riley recalled that things started to get spooky when her brother’s body seemed to be speaking to them and pleading to be buried. Lisa Marie had gotten used to caring for him that way and even got an ink artist to examine the body and make matching tattoos on hers.
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Two months later, Lisa Marie buried her son in Graceland, right next to Elvis Presley’s dad, Vernon. While some people are appalled by the revelation, others assume it was just Lisa Marie’s way of easing out of the shock, and a few defend her, saying it is a tradition in some cultures.