Lisa Marie Presley obituary: “I would never take back anything about who I am or where I come from”

CNN
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As the only daughter of the late Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, the singer Lisa Marie Presley he spent his life in the spotlight from the start.

And public interest in her life, from her marriages to her private tragedies, never waned until, like her father, she was kidnapped too soon.

Lisa Marie Presley died on thursday after suffering an apparent cardiac arrest. She was 54 years old.

“Priscilla Presley and the Presley family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Lisa Marie,” a family statement provided to CNN said. “They are deeply grateful for everyone’s support, love and prayers, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time.”

Days before his hospitalization, Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley attended the Golden Globes in support of the Baz Luhrmann film “Elvis,” starring actor Austin Butler, who picked up an award for his portrayal of the King.

The life of Lisa Marie Presley in pictures

Born at the height of Elvis’ fame in 1968, Lisa Marie Presley was seen as the princess of the man celebrated as “the King of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Elvis and Priscilla Presley separated in 1972 when their daughter was four years old, and she was only nine when her father died in 1977. She was 42 years old.

Soon, she began acting out and experimenting with drugs, prompting her mother to send her to a series of private schools, including a boarding school in Ojai. Lisa Marie Presley noted to the Los Angeles Times in 2003 that when she was growing up, she “was kind of a lonely, melancholy, weird kid.”

“I had a real self-destruct mode for a while,” he said. saying the post. “I never really fit in at school. I didn’t really have any direction.”

She was also the eventual sole heir to Elvis’s estate, as well as his sprawling Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. However, the powerful and ever-looming legacy of her father did not deter her from her desire to pursue a career in music in her own right.

Lisa Marie Presley launched her career in 2003 with a debut studio album, “To Whom It May Concern,” which reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart and was certified gold that summer. She wrote almost all the lyrics on the album and co-wrote all the melodies.

At the time, Lisa Marie Presley said larry king that she had to “park” feelings of pressure and comparison with her legendary singer dad.

“If I had been thinking about it, worrying about it, which I had for a long time, I never would have done what was innately in my heart, in my soul,” he said. “So I had to stop worrying about it, otherwise it would be too intimidating.”

Also around the same time, Lisa Marie Presley pondered whether her famous name was a hindrance or a help, saying Playboy that she didn’t “ask the tabloids to come after me every week.”

But, she added, she would “never take back any part of who I am or where I came from.”

“I would never want to be a part of anything else,” he said. “I feel honored and proud of my family and my dad.”

That first record was followed by two additional albums, 2005’s “Now What” and 2012’s “Storm & Grace.”

Parallel to her musical pursuits, Lisa Marie Presley was married four times, including to musical superstar Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage.

She married musician Danny Keough in 1988, with whom she had a daughter, Riley Keough, and a son, Benjamin Storm Keough.

The couple divorced in May 1994, and approximately three weeks later, Lisa Marie Presley married Jackson in a ceremony that made headlines around the world.

He referred to Jackson in a 2003 interview with ABC News and Diane Sawyer:: “When he wants to lock you up, when he wants to intrigue or capture you, or you know, whatever he wants to do with you, he can do it”. He added that he “fell into this whole, ‘Poor, sweet, misunderstood man, I’m going to save you.’ … I fell in love with him.”

Their marriage ended in January 1996.

Two years later, she married Cage after meeting him at a party, but only stayed married to him for three months, from August to November 2002. The divorce was finalized in 2004.

Her fourth marriage came in 2006, to her guitarist, music producer, and director Michael Lockwood. The couple welcomed twins Finley Aaron Love Lockwood and Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood in 2007. They divorced in 2016.

In 2020, Lisa Marie Presley’s son Benjamin Keough committed suicide at the age of 27. Last July marked the second anniversary of Keough’s death on instagramsharing a photo of their matching foot tattoos.

Last September, she wrote a rehearsal for National Bereavement Awareness Day, in which she opened up about the loss of her son.

“My life and the lives of my three daughters as we knew them were completely detonated and destroyed by his death. We live in this every. Unique. day,” she wrote. “Grief is something that you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, despite what certain people or our culture would have us believe. You don’t ‘get over it’, you don’t ‘move on’, period”.

Presley also said in the essay that she found solace in the company of people who have faced similar tragedy, adding that her daughters help keep her grounded.

“I keep going for my girls,” she wrote. “I keep going because my son made it very clear in his last moments that taking care of his little sisters and watching over them were at the forefront of his concerns and his mind. He absolutely adored them and they him.”

Tributes to Lisa Marie Presley poured in as news of her passing spread.

“This is devastating news. Lisa had the biggest laugh of anyone she’s ever met. She lit up every room and I am heartbroken,” Cage said in a statement provided by his manager Mike Nilon. “I find some comfort in believing that she has been reunited with her son Benjamin.”

Actor John Travolta wrote that he would miss his friend “but I know I’ll see you again.”

“My love and my heart go out to Riley, Priscilla, Harper and Finley,” he wrote in instagram.

Actress Leah Remini said she was “heartbroken by the passing of Lisa Marie Presley” adding that “Lisa did not have an easy life, as some might think.”

“May he be at peace, resting with his son and father now,” he wrote in Twitter.

“Lisa Marie’s final resting place will be at Graceland, alongside her beloved son Ben,” a representative for the family said in a statement to CNN on Friday.