Nearly two years after her death, the truth about Lisa Marie Presley’s final days is emerging. The late musician’s daughter, Riley Keough, is revealing new details about her mother’s life in the introduction to Presley’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, including how she had been handling the last years of her life.
“In the years before she died, my mother, Lisa Marie Presley, began writing her memoir. Though she tried various approaches and sat for many book interviews, she couldn’t figure out how to write about herself,” Keough, 35, writes in an excerpt of the book’s introduction published by PEOPLE. “She didn’t find herself interesting, even though, of course, she was. She didn’t like talking about herself. She was insecure.”
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“She wasn’t sure what her value to the public was other than being Elvis’s daughter,” the Daisy Jones & The Six actress” data-target=”_blank” data-href=”https://cms.cbssports.com/content/article/f3f52091-5a75-4f4d-8353-5795a792e63c/version/us” data-edition=”us” href=”https://popculture.com/streaming/news/daisy-jones-the-six-season-2-not-happening-riley-keough-says/”>Daisy Jones & The Six adds. “She was so wracked with self-criticism that working on the book became incredibly difficult for her. I don’t think she fundamentally understood how or why her story should be told.”
Keough goes on to share that Presley still had a “burning desire” to share her life story. “After she’d grown exceedingly frustrated, she said to me, ‘Pookie, I don’t know how to write my book anymore. Can you write it with me?’” Keough recalls. “‘Of course I can,’ I said.”
“The last 10 years of her life had been so brutally hard that she was only able to look back on everything through that lens,” Keough continues. “She felt I could have a more holistic view of her life than she could. So I agreed to help her with it, not thinking much of the commitment, assuming we would write it together over time. A month later, she died.”
On Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023 Presley was rushed to the hospital after suffering a medical emergency. She died some time later. Presley was 54.
In July 2023 — several months after her passing — TMZ reported that the L.A. County Coroner released their findings on Presley’s official cause of death. Per the department, an investigation into her passing found that the late musician died from a small bowel obstruction. The medical term is “sequelae of small bowel obstruction,” but it essentially means that Presley died of complications resulting from the condition. Notably, TMZ states that the document is not the full coroner’s report, and there will likely be toxicology results when that full report is released to the public.
From Here to the Great Unknown will be published by Random House on Oct. 15, and is now available for preorder wherever books are sold. The book will also be available in audio, as narrated by Keough.