• Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir reveals that she kept her son’s body on dry ice after his death.
• Benjamin Keough died by suicide in July 2020.
• According to the memoir, the body stayed at Presley’s house for two months before being buried at Graceland.

Lisa Marie Presley talked about how she dealt with the death of her son, Benjamin Keough, in her recently published posthumous memoir.

Presley, who died in 2023 at the age of 54, described the heartbreak in “From Here to the Great Unknown,” released Tuesday and co-written by her daughter Riley Keough.

Riley wrote that before Benjamin’s death by suicide at age 27, he had depression and alcohol addiction, which worsened as Presley’s health deteriorated.

‘Ben Ben was a mama’s boy through and through, and he couldn’t deal with his mother being in pain. They were so close – like Elvis and Gladys – one inextricably linked to the rise and fall of the other, and seeing each other in The Pain was impossibly hard for them,” Riley wrote, referring to their grandfather Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys Presley. “It destroyed him.”

After Benjamin’s death on July 12, 2020, Riley said she struggled with grief and was “more physically disabled than my parents.”

In the memoir, Riley said Benjamin was a binge drinker, but she spent a lot of time with him sober. But Presley’s addiction to opioids — which Presley said at one point had “escalated to 80 pills a day” — “meant that she was often not there emotionally” for her son, Riley said.

Riley said she assumed Presley would relapse within hours of Benjamin’s death. To her surprise, her mother remained “completely sober to honor him.”

Instead of holding a funeral and burial shortly afterwards, Presley stored her son’s body in her home on dry ice for two months while she dealt with her grief.

“It was very important that my mother had enough time to say goodbye to him, just as she had done to her father,” Riley wrote. “And I would sit there with him.”

Presley wrote that she “found a very empathetic funeral home owner” who honored her request. The body was kept in a room set at 55 degrees to prevent deterioration, and Presley said the death rituals took a long time because she was torn between burying him in Hawaii or Graceland.

“I got so used to taking care of him and keeping him there,” she wrote. ‘I think it would scare the hell out of anyone if their son was there like that. But not me.’

Benjamin’s funeral took place in Malibu and he was buried in Graceland, next to his famous grandfather.

“I felt so lucky that there was a way I could still raise him, and put it off a little longer, so I could be okay with letting him rest,” Presley wrote in her memoir.

Riley said Benjamin and Presley “shared a very deep soul bond,” and she knew her mother would not survive long without him.

“She didn’t want to be here,” Riley wrote.

Presley herself wrote in chapter eight that she frequently battled her persistent grief and tried to remind herself that she had three living children: Riley and twin daughters Finley Aaron Love and Harper Vivienne Anne.

“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” Presley said. ‘I can’t believe I’m still standing. It feels wrong to live without Ben.”

In an essay published by People magazine in August 2022, months before her death, Presley said she blamed herself for Benjamin’s death “every day.”

Presley’s health continued to decline and she died in January 2023 at the age of 54. The cause of death was small bowel obstruction due to previous surgery. She was buried in Graceland, next to Benjamin and across from Elvis.