Almost 20 months ago, the only child of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presely took her last breath.
Lisa Marie Presley was 54 years old when she died in a California hospital following a cardiac arrest, which was caused by a “small bowel obstruction”.
But according to her eldest daughter Riley Keough, Lisa Marie “died of a broken heart”.
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“My mum physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart,” Keough, 35, told People ahead of the release of Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown.
In a report released by the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office six months after Lisa Marie’s death, it was ruled that she died of natural causes.
Adhesions caused by weight-loss surgery – bariatric surgery – that Lisa Marie underwent several years prior to her death had caused a blockage in her small intestine, which prompted her to go into cardiac arrest.
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Almost 50 years earlier, her father died aged 46 following a cardiac arrest. And almost three years prior to Lisa Marie’s death, her son Benjamin Keough died by suicide aged 27.
“My mum tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters, [15-year-old twins Finley and Harper], after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in,” Keough told the publication.
Two years after her son’s death, Lisa Marie penned an emotional essay about how she would never get over it.
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“Death is part of life whether we like it or not – and so is grieving. There is so much to learn and understand on the subject, but here’s what I know so far: One is that grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss,” Lisa Marie wrote in the essay, which was published by People.
“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. You do not ‘get over it,’ you do not ‘move on,’ period.”
Keough says her mother’s memoir, which she helped write, isn’t solely about grief, however, with Lisa Marie putting pen to paper prior to her death ”in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world.”
If you or someone you know needs immediate or mental health-related support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or via lifeline.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.