Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis, dead at 54

By Kristin M. Hall And Hillel Italie, The Associated Press

Lisa Marie Presley, a singer, Elvis’ only daughter and a dedicated keeper of her father’s legacy, died Thursday after being hospitalized for a medical emergency.

Her death in a Los Angeles hospital was confirmed by her mother, Priscilla, a few hours after her daughter was rushed to the hospital after having a medical emergency at home.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley said in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”

A spokesperson for Los Angeles County’s fire department says paramedics were dispatched to a Calabasas home Thursday morning following a report of a woman in full cardiac arrest. Property records indicate that the 54-year-old Lisa Marie Presley was a resident at that address.

Presley, the only child of Elvis and Priscilla, shared her father’s brooding charisma. She followed him professionally, releasing her own rock albums in the 2000s and appearing on stage with Pat Benatar and Richard Hawley, among others.

Her birth, nine months exactly after her parents’ wedding, was international news and her background was rarely far from her mind. With the release, last year of Baz Luhrmann’s major musical feature “Elvis,” Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley had been attending red carpets, and award shows alongside stars from the film.

She was at the Golden Globes on Tuesday, on hand to celebrate Austin Butler’s award for playing her father. Just days before, she was in Memphis at Graceland — the mansion where Elvis lived and died — on Jan. 8 to celebrate her father’s birth anniversary.

She would later make headlines of her own. Struggles with drugs and some very public marriages. Her four husbands included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.

Elvis Presley died in August 1977 when he was just 42, and she was nine years old. Lisa Marie was staying at Graceland at the time and would recall him kissing her goodnight hours before he would collapse and never recover. When she next saw him the following day, he was lying face down in the bathroom.

“I just had a feeling,” she told Rolling Stone in 2003. “He wasn’t doing well. All I know is I had it (a feeling), and it happened. I was obsessed with death at a very early age.”

Lisa Marie Presley remembered for her charitable efforts, musical career

Lisa Marie became involved in numerous humanitarian causes, from anti-poverty programs administered through the Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation to relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. She would receive formal citations from New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee, for her work.

Presley had two children, actor Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough, with her former husband Danny Keough. She also had twin daughters with ex-husband Michael Lockwood.

Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 27. Presley was vocal about her grief, writing in an essay last August that she had “been living in the horrific reality of its unrelenting grips since my son’s death two years ago.”

“I’ve dealt with death, grief and loss since the age of nine years old. I’ve had more than anyone’s fair share of it in my lifetime, and somehow, I’ve made it this far,” she wrote in an essay shared with People magazine.

“But this one, the death of my beautiful, beautiful son? The sweetest and most incredible being that I have ever had the privilege of knowing, who made me feel so honored every single day to be his mother? Who was so much like his grandfather on so many levels that he actually scared me? Which made me worry about him even more than I naturally would have?” the essay continued. “No. Just no … no no no no …”

Lisa Marie Presley poses for her first picture, in the lap of her mother, Priscilla, on Feb. 5, 1968, with her father, Elvis Presley. (AP Photo/Perry Aycock, File)


Lisa Marie became the sole heir of the Elvis Presley Trust after her father died.

Along with Elvis Presley Enterprises, the trust managed Graceland and other assets until she sold her majority interest in 2005. She retained ownership of Graceland Mansion itself, the 13 acres around it and items inside the home. Her son is buried there, along with her father and other members of the Presley family.

After her first album, “To Whom It May Concern,” in 2003, some fans came out to see her perform just out of curiosity given her famous family, she told the AP in 2005.

“First, I had to overcome a pre-speculated idea of me,” she said of the barriers to becoming a singer-songwriter.

“I had to sort of burst through that and introduce myself, and that was the first hurdle, and then now sing in front of everybody, and then that was the second one, and I’m the offspring of — you know, who I’m the offspring of — I had a few hurdles to get through, no doubt about it,” she continued.

“But the scales never tipped in the other direction too much.”

Tributes pour in following Lisa Marie Presley’s sudden death

 

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“Priscilla Presley and the Presley family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Lisa Marie. They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time.” — statement released by a family spokesman at Graceland.

 

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