Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ only child, dies aged 54

Lisa Marie Presley in 2012. (Photo: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)

Lisa Marie Presley, 2012. (Photo: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni)

Lisa Marie Presley has passed away. suffering a cardiac arrest On Thursday morning, she was at her Calabasas home, Calif. The singer-songwriter, humanitarian, and only child of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Elvis Presley was 20 days shy of her 55th birthday.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Lisa Marie’s mother, Priscilla, confirmed in a statement Thursday evening. “She was the most passionate strong and loving woman I have ever known. We request privacy as we deal with this deep loss. We are grateful for your prayers and love. At this time there will be no further comment.”

According TMZLisa Marie, who broke the news about the heart attack on Thursday morning, was discovered unresponsive by her homekeeper two days after she and Priscilla had been at the Golden Globes ceremony to support Austin Butler. He won the award for Best Actor In a Drama Film for his portrayal as her father. Elvis. Butler acknowledged Lisa Marie in his Globes acceptance speech, saying, “I love you forever.” Her ex-husband Danny Keough, with whom she lived, administered CPR until paramedics arrived. After her pulse had been restored, she was transferred to a nearby Intensive Care Unit where she was placed on life support. She was in an induced coma with a temporary pacemaker.

 Lisa Marie Presley at the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 10, 2023. (Photo: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Icelandic Glacial)

Lisa Marie Presley attending the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023. (Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images Icelandic Glacial

According to TMZ’s sources, Lisa Marie had complained of stomach pains earlier Thursday morning, and this was not a suicide attempt. Both Lisa Marie’s paternal grandmother and father, both aged 42 and 46 respectively, died of heart attacks.

Lisa Marie Presley was just nine months from her parents’ marriage when she was born in Memphis on February 1, 1968. It was a difficult childhood for her, with her parents splitting up at the age of 4 and her dad dying at 9 years old. Lisa Marie interviewed her. Playboy in 2003, Priscilla’s post-divorce boyfriend, actor Michael Edwards, sexually abused Lisa Marie for three years, starting when she was 12 years old. Lisa Marie was raised Scientologist. However, according to several sources, Lisa Marie is not a Scientologist. reports Sometime between 2012 and 2014, the Church was quietly abandoned.

Lisa Marie was a joint heir to Elvis Presley’s estate when her grandfather and great grandmother died in 1977. At that point the estate was only worth a reported $5 million, but Priscilla, a trustee in Elvis’s will, was able to build that fortune back up to an estimated $100 million by the time Lisa Marie solely inherited the estate on her 25th birthday in 1993. From 1998 through 2005, Lisa Marie was chairman of the board for the Elvis Presley Trust, Inc., as well as its business entity, Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc., where she sold 85%, including Graceland, over to CKX, Inc.

Lisa-Marie Presley with her parents, Elvis and  Priscilla Preslet, in 1970. (Photo: GAB Archive/Redferns)

Lisa-Marie Presley (with her parents, Elvis Presley & Priscilla Presley) in 1970. (Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns

Lisa Marie started her own rock band in 2003 at the age of 35. To Whom it May ConcernThe album, featuring illustrious musicians like Billy Corgan and David Campbell, Jon Brion and Matt Chamberlain as well as Mike Elizondo and Abe Laboriel Jr. and Wendy Melvoin, went gold and peaked at No. 5 on Billboard 200 albums charts. The album garnered mostly positive reviews, as did her next two LPs: 2005’s Now what? (which reached No. 9 and featured a cover of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry,” a seeming jab at the tabloids’ constant scrutiny of her personal life) and 2012’s T Bone Burnett-produced Storm & Grace (whose track “So Long” was a seeming jab at the Church of Scientology).

However, Lisa Marie, who actually released several posthumous duets with her father (“Don’t Cry Daddy,” “In the Ghetto,” and “Where No One Stands Alone”), was well aware that comparisons to Elvis were unavoidable. Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment in the Peacock Room at Graceland in 2013, Lisa Marie stressed, “I never tried to be [my father]. I’m my own [artist]. It’s kind of an ever-looming thing over me. Some people that differentiate it and go, ‘OK, I appreciate you for what you do’… and some people can’t get over it. My mom has always been concerned, similarly — she knew I had big shoes to fill, and she’s been concerned and worried, because I did grow up against a lot. It happens automatically. Thank God there are a lot of people out there that do see beyond it or see me for who I am, and I appreciate that.”

Also in her Yahoo Entertainment interview, Lisa Marie said she believed her father “would be really sensitive to and concerned over people comparing me to him… like, ‘You don’t sound like him!’ and ‘You’re not him!’ and all that kind of stuff. He would probably be very protective of me and likely prepare me to handle any criticism that may come. I feel he would be really concerned about that, because that’s what I focus on with my children, like, ‘This is what you’re going to be up against.’”

Lisa Marie was four times married to Danny Keough, a musician from 1988 to 1994 and Michael Jackson, a childhood friend and pop star from 1994 to 1996. She also married Nicolas Cage in 2002, although they separated after three months. In 2006, she married Michael Lockwood, a music producer from 2006 to 2021. They divorced in 2016. From her first marriage, she had two children, Riley Keough, an actress/model, and Benjamin Storm Keough, her son. She also had two children with her fourth husband, her fraternal twins Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood and Finley Aaron Love. The Presley family was again hit by tragedy in July 2020 when Benjamin, age 27, committed suicide.

“It’s a real decision to keep going. One that I must make every day, and one that is always challenging to say the worst. … But I keep going for my girls,” Lisa Marie wrote for People In August of last year, to commemorate National Grief Awareness Day. “I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind. He absolutely adored them and they him.”

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