Remembering Benjamin. After Benjamin Keough — the late son of Lisa Marie Presley — tragically died by suicide at the age of 27, the Presley family has been candid about navigating their loss.
“[Lisa Marie] is entirely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley,” the songwriter’s rep, Roger Widynowski, told Us Weekly in a statement in July 2020, confirming Benjamin’s death. “She adored that boy. He was the love of her life.”
The late musician, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, is survived by father Danny Keough, sister Riley Keough and younger sisters Harper and Finley. (Lisa Marie and ex-husband Danny welcomed Riley and Benjamin in 1989 and 1992, respectively. Lisa Marie and ex-husband Michael Lockwood later welcomed their twins in 2008.)
Before his death, Benjamin was the only grandson of Elvis Presley (who died in 1977) and his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley. The former couple, who split in 1972, also have three granddaughters from daughter Lisa Marie.
“I see a little of [Elvis in Benjamin], but you know, Ben very much is his own person,” the Dallas alum previously told Us in September 2019 of her grandson. “He strives for that so we don’t make a really big deal about it. There’s a resemblance, but we just let him be Ben, which I think is beautiful so that he can find out what he wants to do and be who he is.”
Since Benjamin’s death, his family has been candid about their grieving process.
“Mornings are the hardest. I forget you’re gone. I can’t cry because of the fear that I will never stop. A pain that’s new to me,” Riley, Benjamin’s older sister, wrote via Instagram shortly after her sibling’s death was announced. “You. There are no words for you. Angel is the closest I could think of. Pure light. Baby brother. Best friend. Wild man. Intellectual. Witness to my life. Twin soul. Protector.”
Several years after losing Benjamin, the Presleys have continued to honor his memory.
“I am now living what it’s like to be that same representative to other parents,” Lisa Marie wrote in an essay for People, which was published in August 2022. “Obviously, no parent chooses this road, and thankfully not all parents will have to become a victim to it — and I do mean VICTIM here.”
She added at the time: “I’ve dealt with death, grief and loss since the age of 9 years old. I’ve had more than anyone’s fair share of it in my lifetime and somehow, I’ve made it this far. 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? No. Just no.”
Nearly three years after Benjamin’s passing, news broke that Lisa Marie had died at the age of 54. She suffered from cardiac arrest at her Calabasas house before she was rushed to the hospital.
Scroll below for more of the Presley family’s most heartbreaking quotes about losing Benjamin:
