“It took a long time to come to terms”: Priscilla Presley on losing Lisa Marie

For Priscilla Presley, the death of her only child Lisa Marie in January 2023 has been an open wound that time has been powerless to heal.

In her new memoir Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, Priscilla reveals how that day was "the second saddest" of her life second only to Elvis Presley's death and how long it took for her to know Lisa Marie was really dead. Priscilla describes Lisa Marie's death with poignant detail: her daughter had suffered a small bowel obstruction that was due to previous bariatric surgery. Lisa Marie was discovered unresponsive by her former husband Danny Keough, and frantic efforts were made to get her to the hospital.

Taking Lisa Marie Off Life Support: Priscilla Presley Reveals Why

In the People memoir passage, Priscilla recounts those hours she spent at Lisa Marie's hospital bedside, praying in hopes while the doctors labored. She recalls seeing her daughter hooked up to machines. The ventilator supported her breathing, but her brain activity was minute, and her "spirit," Priscilla reports, just wasn't there any longer.

Faced with the devastating prognosis and warned that there was no chance of meaningful recovery Priscilla Presley made the painful decision to ask the doctors to remove life support. Her voice, she says, was a whisper when she said it. She describes the moment the doctor entered the room, hands formally breaking the news:

“I’m so sorry, she’s gone.”

Shock, disbelief, grief all followed.

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This tale was so relatable to so many readers because it puts loss in its most horrific context: not just through the tragedy, but through the agonized waiting, the final decisions, and the void that ensues. Priscilla Presley also sheds light on the larger grief in her family her granddaughter Riley Keough, her twins, and all those who loved Lisa Marie and admits the process of finally accepting the loss has been one she is still enduring. Priscilla Presley's latest admissions are not just memories of a tragic episode.

They are an ongoing exercise in mourning, love, and reconciliation. When she tells us of her lowest lows from the desperate visit to the hospital and right up to the point when she asked that the machines be taken off she reminds us of the callousness of loss, but of the stoically hard path towards acceptance as well. Her story reminds us that even a celebrity, with their life under the microscope, feels loss with a profound sense of personal, intertwined, and enduring emotion.

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