Priscilla Presley’s reaction to daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir revealed

Content Warning: This article deals with issues of addiction, death, and sexual abuse.

As bombshell after bombshell is shared from Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir, New Idea hears the late star’s mother, Priscilla Presley, is “devastated” by many of the secrets contained within its pages.

In fact, a source claims the 79-year-old Presley family matriarch wasn’t expecting Lisa Marie’s memoir, titled From here to the great unknownto play some of the tracks he did.

Although the couple were believed to be in a good place at the time of Lisa Marie’s death on January 12 last year at the age of 54, it wasn’t always that way.

Elvis’ death left Lisa Marie “stuck” with Priscilla

In her book, Lisa Marie writes that when her father, music legend Elvis Presley, died in 1977, she realized that “life as she knew it was completely over.”

Lisa was nine at the time, but she vividly remembers thinking that she was now “stuck with her,” meaning Priscilla. He also talks about preferring to “go out” as a teenager rather than stay with his mother.

Lisa Marie also claims that when she was 10, her mother’s then-boyfriend, actor Michael Edwards, molested her. Neither Priscilla nor Edwards, 80, have yet publicly commented on the allegation.

“God knows Priscilla and Lisa Marie had their ups and downs, so reliving some of that stuff is torturous for her,” says New Idea’s source. “If I had my time again, I would do it very differently.”

Did Lisa Marie Really Freeze Her Son Benjamin Keough?

Lisa Marie also revealed in her book, which her eldest daughter Riley Keough finished, that she kept the body of her late son Benjamin Keough in her home on dry ice after he died at the age of 27 in July 2020.

Overcome with grief, a heartbroken Lisa Marie explained that Benjamin was kept in a “separate casita bedroom” at his Los Angeles property for two months, which had to remain at around 12 degrees Celsius at all times.

Although it was done in part because burial plans were delayed due to the 2020 pandemic, Riley writes that it was “really important” that her mother “had enough time to say goodbye” to Benjamin, as had done with Elvis. Benjamin was finally buried at the family mansion in Memphis, Graceland.

Drinking away your pain

As the only child of Elvis and Priscilla, Lisa Marie was thrust into the public eye from birth. The Presleys’ tumultuous marriage ended when Lisa Marie was four, and she vividly recalls memories of Elvis as “a very exciting father”.

In the book, Lisa Marie says her father often woke her up in the middle of the night to “get on the table and sing.” They would also roll through their Memphis neighborhood in a custom golf cart!

Lisa Marie also remembers an uneasy feeling when her father kissed her goodnight hours before he died. She never got over the trauma of Elvis’ death, writing, “There have been nights as an adult when I would get drunk, listen to his music, and sit down to cry. The pain still comes. It’s still there.”

His “80 pills a day” addiction.

To try to cope with the death of Elvis, Lisa Marie turned to drugs during her teenage years. It’s a pattern that would repeat itself throughout his life.

“I did everything … cocaine, sedatives, pot and drinking, all at the same time,” said Lisa Marie. “I don’t know how I lived through it.”

Lisa Marie finally got clean after entering a rehab program. But after welcoming twin daughters Finley and Harper Lockwood in 2008, she got hooked on opioids. A doctor had prescribed it for the pain. Soon, I was taking up to 80 pills a day.

“It took more and more time to get high, and I honestly don’t know when your body decides it can’t take it anymore. But it does at some point,” Lisa Marie confessed.

A cocaine addiction followed and Lisa Marie underwent five stints in rehab. She also temporarily lost custody of the twins amid her divorce from their father, Michael Lockwood.

To wean her off the opioids, Lisa Marie was prescribed a drug that Riley says “just served to increase her even more so that whatever the normal dose was, she would somehow get five times that amount from the doctors.” . He also used mood stabilizers which Riley reveals dimmed “his light”.

Lisa Marie was eventually able to stay sober, though an autopsy revealed oxycodone in her system, which she was given after cosmetic surgery.

In an interview to promote the book, Daisy Jones and the six Star Riley said the passages about Lisa Marie’s “descent into addiction” were “incredibly difficult” to finish. .

“(She) wanted to write a book in hopes that someone could read her story and relate to it, to know that they’re not alone in the world,” Riley explained. “His hope with this book was just a human connection. So this is mine.”

You can ask From here to the great unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough on Amazon and Big W.

You can order the audiobook version through Audible.

If you or someone you know is having a hard time, contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or chat to an advisor online.