How Lisa Marie Presley’s matching tattoo with her son Ben Keough helped her grieve

When Lisa Marie Presley’s son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 she started dwelling on borrowed time, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough advised Oprah Winfrey in an unique prime-time particular “An Oprah Particular: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley,” that aired Tuesday.

“I simply could not think about a world the place she would make it with out him,” mentioned Keough as she recalled the ultimate years she shared together with her well-known mom, and the way she processed her brother’s dying, as she completed co-writing “From Right here to the Nice Unknown,” Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir.

“She would say ‘I’ll die of a damaged coronary heart’ and I believe we felt that,” Keough advised Winfrey. 

Lisa Marie’s grief was so immense that she saved Ben’s coffin in her residence for about two months after his dying. She labored with a funeral house owner to make sure the physique was preserved — utilizing dry ice — till it was prepared for burial. 

“Everyone in the home was within the grieving course of,” mentioned Keough, including that Lisa Marie felt consolation when she sat by the physique.

Throughout the mourning interval, Lisa Marie referred to as in a tattoo artist to assist get her ink earlier than laying Ben to relaxation. She wished to have a tattoo like his on her hand — the identical place he had a tattoo.

“My mother was simply very a lot herself,” Keough mentioned. “She wasn’t a loopy woman.”

Keough remembers how Lisa Marie took the artist to Ben’s coffin to indicate him the tattoo placement, making certain that the location could be precisely proper. 

“He is like, okay, do you’ve any images?” Keough remembers the tattoo artist asking. “And she or he was like ‘No, however I can present you.'”

Keough mentioned the tattoo artist was very skilled, studied the location, and created the significant tattoo for Lisa Marie.

The tattoo honoring their mother-son connection proved how shut the pair had been. In her memoir, Lisa Marie wrote about how a lot Ben resembled her father Elvis.

“Ben was similar to his grandfather, very, very, very, and in each manner. He even seemed like him. Ben was a lot like him, it scared me. I did not need to inform him as a result of I assumed it was an excessive amount of to placed on a child. We had been very shut. He’d inform me the whole lot. Ben and I had the identical relationship that my father and his mom had. It was a generational f-–ing cycle. Gladys liked my dad a lot that she drank herself to dying worrying about him. Ben did not stand a f-–ing likelihood,” Lisa Marie wrote. 

Stream Winfrey’s unique hourlong interview with Keough on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. “An Oprah Particular: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” will stream stay on Paramount+ for “Paramount+ with Showtime” subscribers and might be out there on demand the following day for “Paramount+ Necessities” subscribers.

Should you or somebody you already know is in emotional misery or a suicidal disaster, you possibly can attain the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You may also chat with the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline right here.

For extra details about psychological well being care sources and help, The Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness (NAMI) HelpLine will be reached Monday by Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or e-mail [email protected].