On Sunday, Riley Keough gave a heartfelt remembrance of her mother at Lisa Marie Presley’s open memorial service.
Riley, 33, recalled her mother’s unwavering love and fortitude in a statement given at the memorial, which was held at Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. Riley’s husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, also spoke at the service.
“I will always be grateful that we were together for 33 years. I’m confident that I made the world’s best mother choice for me. I can recall everything. You gave me baths when I was a baby, I recall. As his wife sat in the front row with her family, including Priscilla Presley, Smith-Petersen said on stage, “I remember the way you would hold me… and the way you smelt.
“I still have every note you ever put in my lunchbox. I still remember how it made me feel to see you bringing me up from school. I can still feel the love of the most devoted mother I’ve ever known. I appreciate you proving to me that in this life, love is the only thing that counts. He added, disclosing he and Keough had a child together, “I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me, the way you loved my brother and my sisters. “I’m grateful that you gave me my heart, my courage, my humor, my manners, my temper, my wildness, and my stubbornness. I came from your heart.
“I hope you now understand how cherished you were here. I appreciate how hard you worked for us,” he said in closing. “Thank you if I didn’t tell you every day.”
Keough posted a vintage black-and-white photo of herself and Lisa Marie on Instagram on Friday.
In her first remark to the media following the passing of her mother, the lone child of rock legend Elvis Presley and Priscilla, the actress simply wrote: “.”
After being transported to a Los Angeles hospital for a potential cardiac arrest, Lisa Marie passed away on January 12 at the age of 54.
The actress and entrepreneur Priscilla, the singer-mother, songwriter’s her three kids Riley, Finley and Harper Lockwood, both 14, and her grandchild survive her. Benjamin Keough, Lisa Marie’s son, died before her in 2020 when he committed suicide at the age of 27.
Riley, whose father is Lisa Marie’s ex-husband Danny Keough, revealed to PEOPLE in December that her mother played the role of Daisy Jones in her upcoming show Daisy Jones & The Six.
Keough stated that Lisa Marie was “a really powerful, intellectual woman,” and that “my mother is definitely an influence to me.”
I was reared by someone who did their own thing and didn’t really give a damn what other people thought, she said. She undoubtedly served as an inspiration to me.
