Priscilla Presley recently sat down with Piers Morgan and spoke about how she’s been handling the past couple of years. In July 2020 Presley’s grandson, Benjamin Keough, committed suicide at age 27, and in August 2021 her mother died at age 95. In January 2023, her only daughter Lisa Marie Presley, died suddenly due to cardiac arrest. Presley has been dealing with three major losses in as many years, and she broke down in tears when discussing them.
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When asked how she’s been feeling, Presley expressed that it’s been difficult. “I have my good days and I have my bad days,” she said. “It’s difficult to wake up in the morning and not have a call from my daughter, or wonder how my grandson is doing. It’s like … a large part of your life is taken away.”
To make the grieving process even more difficult, Presley is grieving “on a global stage,” as Morgan put it. She can’t grieve her losses privately, because America—if not the whole world—knows who she is. Some of them grieve with her, but not in the same way.
“When you’re living a life—and I mean, married to Elvis Presley,” she continued, “you don’t really know what you’re getting into, especially when you’re younger. You have to adapt to … things getting out that you wish didn’t. You start thinking, ‘my gosh, I have to be careful what I say’ or it’ll be taken wrong or they’ll add onto it, so it’s been a journey there’s no doubt.”
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Being so well-known is especially difficult for Presley, she shared, because she values privacy. She explained that, when she first started dating Elvis, she didn’t tell anyone at school that they were seeing each other. “I valued that trust,” she said of her and Elvis’ relationship. “I would ask the question ‘why me, why does he trust me.’ [Because] I was the listener.”
She shared that she would listen to Elvis’ concerns and frustrations, but she kept them private. Where other people would want to share those things with the public to extend their 15 minutes of fame, Presley valued her privacy and the trust she gained with Elvis. “To this day there are things I hold to my heart that I won’t give up,” she said.
Presley also spoke about the night of the Golden Globes, which she attended with her daughter Lisa Marie. That night, Lisa Marie allegedly complained of crippling stomach pains. Morgan then asked Presley if she was worried there was something serious going on with her daughter.
“She didn’t look well that night,” said Presley, tearing up. “And I was concerned … she didn’t really look okay, she looked very frail.” Presley explained that the two went out for drinks before Lisa Marie claimed she needed to leave. “We walk toward the cars and I hugged her and she went her way and I went mine, and that hug was the last hug I ever gave her, and it’s still shocking … how we don’t have her [anymore].
“It was unbearable,” Presley continued. “I lost my mother, I lost my grandson, and I lost my daughter.” She then spoke about Lisa Marie’s emotions after the death of her son, Benjamin. “That was the hardest thing for her, losing Ben,” she said. “He was the love of her life, she adored him, she would do anything for him.”
Presley then alluded to the fact that Lisa Marie’s twin daughters were what kept her alive after her son took his own life. “She would go on about Ben and how she [was] still grieving … I think she wanted to go earlier, but the twins were still … too young.” She then broke down into tears, asking Morgan to change the subject and turn the cameras off. Morgan wiped away a tear of his own, apologizing.
Watch the complete interview below, where Priscilla Presley expands on her relationship with Elvis, their daughter’s life, and the new film Priscilla by Sofia Coppola.
Photo by Kristy Sparow/Getty Images
