Lisa Marie Presley—the only daughter of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, and the mother of Riley Keough—has died at the age of 54 after suffering from cardiac arrest. Priscilla, now 77, confirmed her daughter’s passing after Lisa Marie was rushed to the hospital from her home in Calabasas on January 12. “It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” she wrote in a statement. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment.”
The news comes days after Lisa Marie joined Priscilla at the Golden Globes to support Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of her father, with Austin Butler receiving the best actor in a drama motion picture statuette for his portrayal of Elvis. “I really didn’t know what to do with myself after I saw it,” Lisa Marie said of the film in an interview on the red carpet. “I had to take, like, five days to process it because it was so incredible and so spot-on and just so authentic that, yeah, I can’t even describe what it meant.”
Tributes quickly poured in from friends, celebrities and fans, led by Elvis star Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. “We are heartbroken over the loss of Lisa Marie Presley—absolutely broken,” the couple shared, with Wilson adding: “Tom and I had spent some time with the family during the Elvis movie promotional tour. Lisa Marie was so honest and direct, vulnerable, in a state of anticipation about the movie. She spoke so eloquently about her father.”
Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, Lisa Marie became the joint heir to Elvis’s estate along with her grandfather and great-grandmother following the King’s passing in 1977—eventually becoming sole heir to the $100 million portfolio in 1993. While she sold the majority of the estate to Industrial Media in 2005, she retained control of Graceland until her death.
Although Lisa Marie lived with her mother in Los Angeles following her parents’ divorce in 1973, she would frequently return to Memphis to stay with Elvis at Graceland until his death, when she was just nine years old. Per Priscilla’s memoir, Elvis & Me, Lisa Marie had a privileged if unusual childhood; her fifth birthday saw her receive a slot machine from her father, while on her eighth, she was given a mink coat and a diamond ring. When Lisa Marie once mentioned to Elvis that she had never seen snow, Priscilla recalls, the pair hopped on a jet together and decamped to Idaho for 30 minutes, then flew home. Lisa Marie would also be one of the last people to see Elvis before he died, with the musician later recalling her father coming in to kiss her goodnight hours before he passed away.
Lisa Marie released three albums over the course of her life: To Whom It May Concern (2003), Now What (2005), and Storm & Grace (2012). While she enjoyed commercial success—To Whom It May Concern sold more than 500,000 copies—interest in her tumultuous personal life tended to trump interest in her music, something she proved to be keenly aware of in interviews.
Lisa Marie was married four times, beginning with musician Danny Keough in 1988; the pair remained together for six years and had two children, Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough. (Benjamin committed suicide in 2020, with Lisa Marie opening up about her shattering grief in an essay for People.) She would go on to tie the knot with Michael Jackson, Nicolas Cage, and guitarist Michael Lockwood, with whom she had twin daughters, Harper and Finley Lockwood.
“Part of the problem with my love life [is that] I’m looking for someone similar to [my father],” Lisa Marie told the New York Times in an interview in 2003. “I’m looking for someone similar to him, and nobody could ever compare. He was so extraordinary a presence—not even as an entertainer, just as a person. Yes, he sang well, and, yes, the songs were great, but that was him coming through the music. He was bigger than life—and he still is.”