Riley Keough Tells Oprah About Lisa Marie Presley’s Tough Final Years — and the Lengths Her Mother Went to in Processing Grief: ‘I Can See How This Sounds Insane’

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Riley Keough sat down with Oprah Winfrey at her family’s estate, Graceland, for a one-hour CBS special devoted to discussion of the new book “From Here to the Great Unknown,” which Keough completed after her mother began dictating memories for a memoir before dying in 2022.

Among the revelations that were arising Tuesday, with the release of the book and the prime-time event, were just how deep Lisa Marie Presley was into grief in her final two years, although she seemed to have overcome a drug addiction, even as her health failed.

Among the stories already being most talked about from the book — and discussed in detail in “An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” — is the extent to which Lisa Marie Presley literally did not want to let go of her cherished son, Ben, after he died by suicide in 2020.

As recounted in the special, Lisa Marie kept Ben’s body around for two months after he passed, unable to decide whether to have him buried at Graceland or Hawaii, but also feeling that she could better process her grief by having his presence remain in the house for an extended period, even in death. “On paper, I could see how this sounds completely insane and absurd,” Keough said, “but my mom was just very much herself… You know, she wasn’t a crazy lady.” She compared her mother’s way of taking longer to process death as more akin to what happens in non-Western societies — while acknowledging that it seemed bizarre when she considered it through others’ eyes… which she had occasion to do when a visitor came to the house. “It was about two months, and everybody in the house was in the grieving process,” Keough told Winfrey, who asked, “Can you.