Riley Keough found it ‘incredibly painful’ to listen to tapes of her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Riley Keough completed her late mother Lisa Marie Presley’s memoir, but it didn’t come without a cost.

The actress spoke with People about “From Here to the Great Unknown,” which tells the story of the life of her mom, who died in January 2023 of complications from a prior weight loss surgery.

Presley was 54.

“Because my mother was Elvis Presley’s daughter, she was constantly talked about, argued over and dissected,” Riley, 35, told the publication via email. “What she wanted to do in her memoir, and what I hope I’ve done in finishing it for her, is to go beneath the magazine headline idea of her and reveal the core of who she was.”

Keough is left to mourn, along with her sisters, Finley Aaron Love Lockwood and Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood. Their brother, Benjamin Keough, died at the age of 27 in 2020.

The “Daisy Jones & The Six” star listened to recordings of Presley.

“The tapes are an incredible portrait of the force of nature that she was,” Keough said. “Depending on the day and her mood, she can sound locked-in or distracted, vulnerable and open or annoyed and closed off, hopeful, angry, everything. You hear her in all her complications.”

Keough also talked about what she hopes people take away from the book.

“To turn her into a three-dimensional human being: the best mother, a wild child, a fierce friend, an underrated artist, frank, funny, traumatized, joyous, grieving, everything that she was throughout her remarkable life,” she said. “I want to give voice to my mother in a way that eluded her while she was alive.”

“From Here to the Great Unknown” publishes on October 8.

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