Tragic Details About The Death Of Benjamin Keough

Drug addiction has affected many lives in the Presley family, notably Elvis Presley, the King of Rock n' Roll, his daughter Lisa Marie, and eventually her son, Benjamin Keough. Just like his grandfather, substances contributed to Benjamin losing his life. In 2020, the Presley family legacy died by suicide at just 27 years old. Keough was reportedly dealing with depression, and his autopsy revealed alcohol and cocaine in his system at the time of his death.

It was his sister, actress Riley Keough, who told Lisa Marie that her beloved son had passed, a Page Six article revealed. Benjamin was hosting a party at Lisa Marie's Calabasas home and left guests around 3 a.m. to grab a beer from upstairs; an hour had passed before anyone realized the young man was missing, Riley noted. At about 5:30 a.m., Lisa Marie's assistant phoned Riley and notified her that Benjamin had died.

Recalling the moments after in her book co-authored with her mother, "From Here to the Great Unknown," Riley explained she ran to the hotel room where her mom was at the time. "I already knew, clear as day, in those moments banging on her door, that any time I got with her after, what was about to happen would be a gift. I couldn't imagine her living without my brother."

Lisa Marie Presley and her son, Benjamin Keough, were reportedly very close, and therefore, his death took a great toll on her – they even got matching tattoos one Mother's Day. According to Page Six, when Presley saw her son's body after he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound she said, "What did you do, Benjamin?" Presley kept her son's body on ice in a room at their home, keeping it at a steady temperature of 55 degrees for two months, as revealed in Presley and Riley Keough's book (via Page Six). The 27-year-old's body was later buried at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.

Riley also noted that shortly before Benjamin's death, he reached out to his mom with concerns for his mental health: "We found a text sent to my mom a couple of weeks before he died that read, 'I think something's wrong with me mentally or something like that. I think I have a mental health issue,'" she wrote. "It's heartbreaking to me that he only realized he might need help just two weeks before he killed himself."

Presley had a difficult time grieving Benjamin's death; she shared with People how she did so. "Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe," she wrote in the magazine. "You do not 'get over it,' you do not 'move on,' period." 

Lisa Marie later died in 2023 from cardiac arrest, though her daughter had told People, "...We all knew she died of a broken heart." The two left behind Riley and Lisa Marie's twin daughters Finley and Harper Lockwood to mourn their loss.