Priscilla Presley says 'Elvis and Benjamin Keough greeted' Lisa Marie after death

Lisa Marie Presley's mum believes her dad, Elvis and son Benjamin Keough "were there to see her over" after she died. The singer-songwriter and only child of the King of Rock and Roll tragically died aged 54 in January 2023.

At the time, it was stated that Lisa Mariehad suffered a cardiac arrest at her home in Calabasas, California,and was rushed to the hospital after she regained a pulse. But later that day, her distraught mother, Priscilla, made the decision to turn off the life support machines, which had been helping Lisa Marie.

Now, in her new memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla, 80, has opened up about the heartbreaking moment and how she believes her ex-husband, Elvis, and Lisa's son, Benjamin, welcomed her into heaven. "I knew from the first moment I walked into Lisa's hospital room that she was already gone," Priscilla painfully wrote.

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She went on to say that Lisa Marie was "hooked" to a machine which was breathing for her and she had a heartbeat, although there was "little brain activity." Despite Lisa Marie being alive, Priscilla's spirit had left her body, something which her daughter Riley Keough also believes.

"Riley later told us that while she was still on her flight, she had felt her mother's spirit pass," she explained. However, the Presley family were not ready to let go, with Lisa Marie's half-brother, Navarone Garibaldi Garcia, instantly being rushed into the medical room to be with his sister.

It was here that Navarone asked when Lisa Marie would start breathing again, which a doctor stated could be two minutes. While some relatives left the room, Priscilla and Danny Keough, Lisa Marie's ex-husband, remained, stroking her hands and face, telling her how much they loved her.

Sadly, just minutes after Priscilla left the room, an emergency alarm rang – signalling that Lisa Marie's heart had stopped, with Priscilla falling into the arms of her cousin, Ivy. Lisa Marie's heart was restarted, but there was no guarantee she would be in a stable position, with Priscilla writing that she would be "lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life." At this point, she made the decision to "say goodbye".

"I said what I had to, 'take her off the machine, doctor,'" Priscilla wrote. She says that while she doesn't remember it, she fell back as the nurse started to remove the apparatus which helped Lisa Marie breathe. But Priscilla, while she was heartbroken, felt reassured that Lisa hadn't been alone when she made her journey to her next life.

She penned: "Riley and I knew that Lisa's heart had really stopped beating the day Benjamin died. I like to believe that her son and her father were there to see her over. I need to believe that my girl is not alone." Benjamin died aged 27 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He was found by authorities at his home in California on July 12, 2020. At the time, Lisa Marie's spokesperson said she was "beyond devastated" and was attempting to remain strong for her other children. At his last public appearance before his death, he was joined by his family at the 40th anniversary of Elvis' death, during a vigil held at Graceland.

Lisa Marie kept his body at home, on dry ice. Riley Keough explained that her mother made the decision so Benjamin was "in her control" as the world was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic. "She didn't want his body to be somewhere where people could mess with it," she said.

She enlisted the help of a compassionate funeral director to get Benjamin's body to her house and had to keep the room where he was kept at 55 degrees, and she felt "fortunate" to be able to continue to care for him while she decided on whether his final resting place should be the family's Graceland estate or in Hawaii.

Lisa Marie wrote in her own memoir, released after her death: "That was part of why it took so long. I got so used to him, caring for him and keeping him there. I think it would scare the living f****** p*** out of anybody else to have their son there like that. But not me. I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him, delay it a bit longer so that I could become okay with laying him to rest."

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