Lisa Marie Presley's famous father passed away when she was 9-years-old, so her memories
of him are few.
Sadly, Elvis' death wouldn't be the last time she faced tragedy.
Keep watching to learn the tragic truth of Lisa Marie Presley.
Lisa Marie Presley was born on February 1, 1968, exactly nine months to the day after
her parents got married.
The morning of her birth was certainly nontraditional.
Classic Country reveals that even though her mother's water broke early that day, Priscilla
Presley still had her hair and makeup done before her daughter's arrival, and Elvis Presley
took his time getting out of bed.
Lisa Marie spent her early years at her father's home, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee.
However, her parents divorced when Lisa Marie was 4-years-old, which meant the young girl
had to deal with a lot of change and upheaval.
After Priscilla left Graceland in 1972, the pair finalized their split in 1973.
Lisa Marie began traveling back and forth between her dad's home in Memphis and her
mother's home in Los Angeles.
Lisa Marie later explained that life at her dad's was pretty fantastic, especially for
a young child.
As she told Express, they shared some unusual habits, but they had a blast.
Lisa Marie said,
"[We would] go to bed at four or five a.m. and get up at two or three the next afternoon.
It was always a lot of fun.
There is not one bad memory."
Everything Lisa Marie Presley knew to be true came tumbling down around her on August 16,
1977, when her father, Elvis Presley, died at the age of 42.
Elvis was discovered unconscious by his girlfriend, Ginger Alden, in his bathroom.
His death was officially due to cardiac arrest, likely exacerbated by chronic constipation
and his ongoing and persistent drug use, per Town & Country.
Lisa Marie later said that the last time she saw her dad alive was around 4 in the morning
on the day of his death.
She said her father found her still awake, told her she should be asleep, and tucked
her back into bed.
Lisa Marie added that her bedroom was next to the bathroom where her father was found,
and she knew from the attention being paid to the room that something horrible had happened.
Lisa Marie worried about her father's health even as a young child, pleading with him not
to die more than once.
Per Express, she revealed he had collapsed before, and she was the one to help him recover.
Lisa Marie told the outlet:
"It was just starting to become too common.
He was not too happy.
He was in such an ivory tower and so untouchable and so alienated."
Because her parents divorced when she was only 4 years old, it's probably not too surprising
that Lisa Marie Presley has admitted she doesn't have a ton of memories of Elvis Presley and
Priscilla Presley together.
In fact, when asked to recall a moment that included both of her parents, Lisa Marie told
HuffPost the best she could do would be to share memories of them separately, explaining,
"I don't recall a lot of them together.
[...] I was with them mostly separately."
Lisa Marie added that when it came to life with her father, her most vivid memories are
of how their bedrooms were on the same floor at Graceland, which gave them a lot of opportunities
to spend time together.
Of course, that sometimes happened at odd hours, as Elvis stayed up late into the night
and didn't mind if Lisa Marie did, too.
"I'm upstairs.
The upper part of Graceland is basically his room and my room so we spent a lot of time
together up there."
Lisa Marie Presley got married for the first time in 1988 to musician Danny Keough at West
Hollywood's Celebrity Center International of the Church of Scientology.
As shared by People, the wedding was attended by only nine people, including Lisa Marie's
mother and grandparents, along with her mother's sister and three friends of the family.
At the time, Lisa Marie was already pregnant with her first child, a daughter that she
and Danny would name Riley.
The details of the day were held tight to the chest, and Priscilla Presley's publicist
released a terse statement summing up the day's events.
The statement read,
"Lisa, 20, married musician Daniel Keough, 23, her boyfriend for the past three years.
Priscilla said, 'I am thrilled for Lisa Marie.
Danny is a great guy, and I couldn't be happier for the two of them.'"
Per the Associated Press, the pair welcomed their son, Benjamin, in October 1992.
They ultimately divorced in 1994 after six years of marriage.
Riley later revealed that, while life with her mother was privileged, life with her father
was quite different.
She told The Guardian,
"My father had mattresses on the floor of his apartments.
He lived in cabins and trailer parks."
However, Riley was quick to point out that life with her dad was pretty great despite
his lifestyle.
Lisa Marie Presley first met her second husband, the late pop music superstar Michael Jackson,
in 1970 at an industry event.
However, decades would pass before the two would reunite.
When that happened, Presley was still married to her first husband, Danny Keough, and she
and Jackson became phone friends.
The two grew close as Jackson weathered allegations of sexual abuse.
"These statements about me are totally false."
Jackson and Presley made things official the following year.
In fact, the two made things incredibly official.
As related by Us Weekly, they were married only 20 days after Presley's divorce from
Keough was finalized in May 1994.
Presley shared the news of their wedding in a statement, also revealing they had wed outside
of the U.S. and that she would be working under the name "Mrs. Lisa Marie Presley-Jackson."
Though the two weren't married for long, their relationship was scrutinized constantly.
Presley once explained to ABC Primetime Live that the insinuations regarding their marriage
were hurtful, saying,
"How can you fake this 24 hours a day — sleeping with somebody, waking up with somebody?
I'm not going to marry somebody for any reason other than the fact that I fall in love with
them."
Unfortunately, Lisa Marie Presley's marriage to Michael Jackson ended quite soon after
it began.
Presley filed for divorce from Jackson in December 1995, only 18 months after their
May 1994 wedding.
Presley later defended her decision to leave Jackson because she felt she was unable to
help him — or he was unwilling to let her.
She told Express that her ex-husband's behavior made the decision necessary, explaining,
"The hardest decision I have ever had to make, which was to walk away and let his fate have
him, even though I desperately loved him and tried to stop or reverse it somehow."
Presley added that Jackson desperately wanted to have children with her, but she was still
reeling from having left her first marriage and breaking up the only family that her children
had known.
Jackson pushed hard, telling Presley that his friend Debbie Rowe had already agreed
to have his children if she would not.
Despite their rocky reality, Presley later shared that she and Jackson contemplated getting
back together before he died in 2009.
In 2010, Presley told Oprah Winfrey they had an on-again, off-again relationship, saying,
"We still spent four more years after we divorced [...] getting back together and breaking up."
After divorcing Michael Jackson, Lisa Marie Presley moved on to date actor Nicolas Cage.
As reported by People, the two were introduced at a party in 2000 and got married in August
2002, though they quickly filed for divorce only three months later.
Bizarrely, the divorce took quite some time to settle and wasn't finalized until May 2004.
Cage later discussed their brief marriage and on-again, off-again relationship with
Barbara Walters, explaining that, while their union made sense, as they both hailed from
famous families, their personalities weren't compatible for long-term love.
He revealed that both he and Presley were a bit fiery, noting,
"Oftentimes when you have two people who are very strong and their own personalities, and
rather intense, sometimes you can have a hard time meshing."
Though it took some time, it seems that the marriage between Presley and Cage resolved
without much drama.
Ultimately, neither was required to pay spousal support, and each retained the assets they
brought into the marriage.
A few years after her marriage to Nicolas Cage ended, Lisa Marie Presley found herself
getting married for the fourth time.
This time, she married fellow musician Michael Lockwood, a guitarist in her band.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the pair welcomed twin daughters, Finley and Harper, in 2008.
However, it seems like things with Lockwood took a turn for the worse not long after.
Presley filed for divorce from Lockwood in 2016, an act that kicked off a fierce custody
battle over their twins.
In 2017 Los Angeles detectives raided Lockwood's home and seized computers after Presley notified
authorities, claiming that the machines contained inappropriate photos and videos.
Their daughters temporarily ended up in the custody of California's Department of Children
and Family Services before Presley's mother stepped in.
Presley's divorce from Lockwood was finalized in May 2021.
These days, the two share joint legal custody of their daughters, with Presley retaining
physical custody.
In August 2018, Lisa Marie Presley opened up about something that had caused a lot of
pain in her life and which had echoes of her father's death written all over it.
She began struggling with drug addiction at the age of 45.
While speaking to Jenna Bush Hager for Today, Presley aired all of her dirty laundry.
For starters, her addiction began much later in life than a lot of people experience.
She said,
"I was not happy.
And by the way, the struggle in addiction, for me, started at 45 years old.
It wasn't like it was happening all my life."
Happily, by the time Presley spoke about her bout with addiction, she had already recovered.
Presley shared how her therapist called her a "miracle" and noted that she shouldn't be
alive after overcoming everything she's experienced.
According to People, Presley also penned the forward of the book The United States of Opioids:
A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain, detailing her battle with painkillers.
She says she was prescribed the drugs following the 2008 birth of her twin daughters but that:
"[I]t only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel
the need to keep taking them."
Drug addiction and divorce aren't the only hardships Lisa Marie Presley has faced.
In 2018, she shared that she was over $16 million in debt, a number that feels nearly
impossible for the person who inherited Elvis Presley's estate.
As Lisa Marie's current business manager, Justin Stiegemeyer, told People, the bulk
of the debt was racked up while her former team at Provident Financial Management managed
her finances.
He explained that the singer had not been informed of the status of her accounts and
that, by the end of 2010, Lisa Marie was left with liquid assets worth only $20,000.
Per Pop Culture, Lisa Marie sued Provident Financial Management for $100 million, alleging
the company squandered the money she received from her father and his estate.
She also alleged that her former financial advisor failed to accurately relay to her
just how much she really had in the bank.
Pop Culture also reveals that, of the $16 million, $10 million is due to unpaid taxes
for the years 2012 to 2015 and that approximately $6 million is related to a home she owns in
the U.K.
In 2020, Lisa Marie Presley was faced with unfathomable tragedy again when her son, Benjamin
Keough, died by suicide at the age of 27.
Benjamin was found dead at his home in Calabasas, California.
Benjamin was Lisa Marie's second-born child with ex-husband Danny Keough.
A year after his death, Lisa Marie noted Benjamin's 28th birthday on Instagram, revealing she
didn't anticipate ever recovering from losing him.
She wrote,
"I worshiped the ground you walked on, on this earth and now in Heaven.
My heart and soul went with you.
The depth of the pain is suffocating and bottomless without you every moment of every day."
At one point, Benjamin was planning to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and mother
when he was signed to a record label in 2009.
Lisa Marie also previously revealed that both Benjamin and his older sister, Riley Keough,
were supportive of her own music career, telling HuffPost that her son "loves" being out on
the road with her when he could.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.