Graceland is in solid hands with Riley Keough.
Since August 2023, the Daisy Jones & the Six actress, 35, has acted as the sole trusteeof her late mom Lisa Marie Presley’s estate and the owner of her grandfather Elvis Presley’s beloved Memphis, Tenn., mansion.
“My hope is to continue what my grandmother [Priscilla Presley] did, and then my mother did, which is simply to preserve our family home,” Riley tells PEOPLE via email for this week’s cover story.
Keough also presides over the sub-trusts of her 15-year-old sisters Finley and Harper Lockwood, Lisa Marie’s daughters from her 2006 to 2021 marriage to ex-husband Michael Lockwood.
Elvis Presley on the grounds of Graceland ca. 1957.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
This week’s PEOPLE cover story shares the first excerpt from Lisa Marie’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which Riley completed following her mom’s death at age 54 in 2023 from a small-bowel obstruction that developed after she’d undergone bariatric surgery several years prior.
In order to complete the memoir, which she’d promised her mom she’d help write prior to her death, Riley listened to tapes of memories Lisa Marie recorded.
“Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected,” Riley says “What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headline idea of her and reveal the core of who she was. To turn her into a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, a wild child, a fierce friend, an underrated artist, frank, funny, traumatized, joyous, grieving — everything that she was throughout her remarkable life. I want to give voice to my mother in a way that eluded her while she was alive.”
Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley in 2017.
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In the memoir, Lisa Marie talks about dad Elvis’ love and how much she struggled after his death; her romantic relationships; the balm of motherhood; the devastating death of her son Benjamin, Riley’s brother, in 2020; and the redemptive birth of her granddaughter, Riley’s 2-year-old daughter Tupelo.
“The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was,” Riley says. “Depending on the day and her mood, she can sound locked-in or distracted, vulnerable and open or annoyed and closed off, hopeful, angry, everything. You hear her in all her complications.”
Even about the most wrenching topics, Riley adds, “There wasn’t much we didn’t discuss, and I know that she knew how much I loved her, just as I know how much she loved me and my brother and sisters. I don’t feel like she or I left anything unsaid, which I feel profoundly grateful for.”
Riley Keough and mom Lisa Marie Presley ca. 1995.
As Riley readies for public attention to once again turn toward her mother’s story, she’s also looking ahead to the day Tupelo, whom she shares with her stuntman husband Ben Smith-Petersen, can read it.
“This is one of the biggest privileges of the whole thing,” Riley says. “Not everyone has a book to read about their grandparents. That’s unique to our family. And it’s really a gift.”
From Here to the Great Unknown will be released Oct. 8 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
