Following Elvis Presley’s death, his open casket was displayed at Graceland for approximately two days before his burial on the estate. In her memoir, Lisa Marie Presley, who was just nine years old at the time of her father’s passing, described her experience of being with his body. “I went down to where he was lying in the casket, just to be with him, to touch his face and hold his hand, to talk to him,” she reflected. She expressed her confusion over the loss, asking her father, “Why is this happening? Why are you doing this?”
Presley acknowledged that she was unsure how to cope with her grief, but felt comforted by having her father’s body in their home. “Having my dad in the house after he died was incredibly helpful because I could go and spend time with him and talk to him,” she wrote.
In 2022, she published an essay in People on National Grief Awareness Day, where she discussed the nature of grief. “Death is part of life whether we like it or not — and so is grieving,” she stated, emphasizing that grief does not simply vanish with time. “You do not ‘get over it,’ you do not ‘move on,’ period,” she continued.
Before the release of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” film in 2022, Presley shared on social media about the profound impact of her son’s death. “I haven’t posted in quite some time because there really isn’t much to say, as I am and will forever be mourning the loss of my son,” she wrote on Instagram. She described her grief as something that had “swallowed me whole.”
In her memoir, Presley recounted the process of bringing her son Benjamin’s body into their home, aided by a funeral home owner who was sympathetic to her wishes. She wrote, “They told us that if we could tend to the body, we could have him at home, so she kept him in our house for a while on dry ice. . . And I would go and sit in there with him.” His body was cared for in a room maintained at 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which allowed Presley to delay saying goodbye. “I felt so fortunate that there was a way that I could still parent him,” she added.
To honor their son and brother, Presley and her daughter Riley decided to get matching tattoos of Benjamin’s name. Benjamin had previously tattooed his sister’s name on his collarbone and their mother’s name on his hand, inspiring them to do the same in those areas. Keough shared that the tattoo artist was invited to see her brother’s body to get the placement and font just right, resulting in an unusual yet poignant moment.
“I stood there aghast,” Keough said, recalling how her mother pointed out the tattoo and discussed its positioning while they were with Benjamin’s body. “I’m sure he was thinking, ‘What the f— is going on?’ But he stayed that day and did the tattoo perfectly,” Keough added.
As they kept Benjamin’s body at home, Presley contemplated where to bury him, weighing options between Graceland and Hawaii. Eventually, both she and Keough sensed that Benjamin did not want to remain at the house. They chose to bury him at Graceland beside his grandfather Elvis after holding a funeral service in Malibu, ensuring that his beloved yellow Nike sneakers were placed inside the casket with him.