Riley Keough on Lisa Marie Presley’s ‘Heartbreaking’ Nepo Baby Struggle

Riley Keough is reflecting on the effect that fame had on her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley.

“I think that, in her case, which isn’t always the case, being the daughter of someone that famous and iconic made it really hard for her to try and have a career, but also to be a person away from that at all. Her entire identity was being Elvis [Presley]’s daughter,” Keough, 35, said of Lisa Marie during an interview with Elle published on Sunday, October 27.

Keough added that Lisa Marie “didn’t enjoy” the fame and attention that came with her father’s musical legend status.

“The most heartbreaking thing for me, growing up, was to watch this woman who I could tell so deeply wanted love and friendship, really struggle to find it,” she continued. “I think that’s really common at that level of fame. Being Elvis’ daughter is different to being other people’s daughters, I think. Not to say she didn’t have a few great friendships and relationships in her life — it just was always a struggle.”

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Riley Keough was long a “very proud” daughter to the late Lisa Marie Presley. “I feel very proud and in awe of my mother, she somehow lived in honesty and truth all the time, no matter how uncomfortable that was for her or the people around her,” Keough, 35, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, October […]

Lisa Marie died at age 54 in January 2023. An autopsy report subsequently revealed that she died of small bowel obstruction “caused by adhesions that developed after bariatric surgery” years prior.

One month before her death, Lisa Marie asked Keough to help her finish her memoir. Keough honored the request and used tapes that her mom previously recorded to complete the book. From Here to the Great Unknown hit shelves on October 8 and immediately became a New York Times bestseller.

“I just felt like something drove me to complete it for her,” Keough told Elle of the memoir.

The book details some of Lisa Marie’s darkest moments, from her addiction battles to her son Benjamins’s death by suicide at age 27 in 2020.

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While completing the late Lisa Marie Presley’s posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, Riley Keough revealed new details of her mother’s final days. “In the years before she died, my mother, Lisa Marie Presley, began writing her memoir. Though she tried various approaches and sat for many book interviews, she couldn’t figure out […]

“[It’s] a human story in what I know is an extraordinary circumstance,” Keough said.

While Keough believes that her grandfather’s fame complicated Lisa Marie’s life, she acknowledged that her family ties may have helped her acting career.

“I’m sure being Elvis’ granddaughter has made it easier for me to get an agent, to have meetings and all this stuff when I started out,” the Daisy Jones & the Six star said. “I know there’s so much nepo baby [discourse] at the moment, [and] I certainly acknowledge that aspect of the privilege of coming where I come from. I’m not an idiot! I’m aware of privilege in an acute way.”

Lisa Marie tried to dissuade Keough from pursuing a career in Hollywood, fearing that her connection to Elvis could hurt her.

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After Lisa Marie Presley’s death in 2023, her eldest daughter, Riley Keough, picked up where she left off and completed her memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown. In the leadup to the book’s October 2024 release, Keough spoke publicly about her mom for the first time since Presley’s death, opening up about her mom’s […]

“[My mom] would say to me, ‘If you’re going to do this, you have to be so good at what you do or else nobody’s going to take you seriously, you’re not going to get any jobs and it’s going to be embarrassing,’” Keough recalled. “‘You don’t want to be an embarrassing celebrity kid!’ She ingrained that into me and my brother so deeply.”

Not only has Keough found success as an actor, but she also isn’t easily embarrassed.

“I have a real chip missing, which I think can be a benefit to me: I don’t get embarrassed [with] performing, with creating art, with writing, because you’re always changing,” she explained. “I feel very fluid with that part of myself. You’re always going to do a s—-y job at something; that doesn’t dictate your entire existence.”