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At the weekend Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter to Priscilla and Elvis Presley, was laid to rest at Gracelands in Memphis alongside her father and son. A public memorial service was held on the front lawn of the family estate with the likes of Austin Butler and Kaia Gerber, the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, rock artist Billy Corgan, and Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose attending the farewell.
“I feel like I’m supposed to be texting her like, right now, saying ‘I’m here,’ telling her how wonderful everyone is,” Axl said in a speech prior to performing the Gun N’ Roses hit ‘November Rain’. “I never in a million years imagined singing here and especially under these circumstances.”
Priscilla recited a poem entitled “The Old Soul” written about Lisa Marie and shared a speech on behalf of her granddaughters.
“I have no idea how to put my mother into words,” Priscilla read from her phone. “Truth is, there are too many. Lisa Marie Presley was an icon, a role model, a superhero to many people all over the world. But Mama was my icon, my role model, my superhero, in much more ways than one. Even now, I can’t get across everything there is to be understood or known about her, but as she always said, ‘I’ll do my best.'”
Presley is survived by her twin daughters Harper and Finley, 14, whom she shared with ex-husband Michael Lockwood, and daughter Riley Keough, 33, whose father is Danny Keough.
It was also revealed at the memorial that Riley recently welcomed a daughter. Her husband Ben Smith-Petersen attended the event and gave a speech on her behalf from a noted titled “A Letter to my Mama”.
“Thank you for being my mother in this life. I am eternally grateful to have spent 33 years with you,” Smith-Petersen read. “I’m certain I chose the best mother for me in this world and I knew that as far back as I remember you.”
He continued, “I remember everything. I remember you giving me baths as a baby and I remember you driving me in my car seat listening to Aretha Franklin. I remember the way you would cuddle me and when I’d come into your bed at night, and the way you smelled. I remember you taking me for ice cream after school in Florida. I remember you singing me and my brother lullabies at night and how you would lay with us until we fell asleep.”
Presley’s son and Riley’s brother, Benjamin, tragically passed away at age 27 in 2020 due to suicide.
Presley died on January 13 after suffering from cardiac arrest.
