Lisa Marie Presley To Be Honoured With Public Memorial Service at Graceland
“Riley, Harper, Finley, and Priscilla are grateful for the support, well-wishes, and outpouring of love honouring their beloved Lisa Marie. A public memorial service has been arranged on the front lawn of Graceland at 9:00 am on Sunday, January 22 in Memphis,” a representative for her daughter Riley Keough says in a statement.
Lisa Marie died Thursday after being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital for a possible cardiac arrest. The daughter of Elvis Presley was 54
The singer-songwriter is survived by her mother, actress and businesswoman Priscilla Presley, 77; and her three daughters, Riley, 33, and twins Finley and Harper Lockwood, 14. Lisa Marie was preceded in death by her son Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide at age 27 in 2020.
Her final resting place will be at Graceland next to her son Benjamin, according to Riley’s representative.
Lisa Marie will join her son at the Meditation Garden — which is also the final resting place of Elvis, Elvis’ mother Gladys Presley, Elvis’ father Vernon Presley and Elvis’ grandmother Minnie Mae Presley.
As Deadline points out, Lisa Marie once wrote about her future resting place in her song “Light’s Out” off her 2003 debut album To Whom It May Concern. “Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis,” she sang. “Ooh, that’s where my family’s buried and gone (gone)/Oh yeah/Last time I was there I noticed a space left/Oh, next to them there in Memphis, yeah/In the damn back lawn.”
Almost a week before her death, Lisa Marie spent time at Graceland celebrating what would have been Elvis’ 88th birthday, according to grief counselor David Kessler. Kessler, an expert on grief and loss and the founder of grief.com, and Lisa Marie grew close after the death of her son.
In an Instagram post, Kessler said he spent time with Lisa Marie at her father and son’s gravesite, which would ultimately be her resting place, too.
“Graceland was her happy place and the employees who all knew her shared that she was looking so much better. She looked more at peace and was so proud of the Elvis movie,” he said. “Saturday night we sat at the graves of her father and son.
We talked about the heartbreak she grew up with and the more recent devastation of her son’s death. She showed me where she would be buried someday. I said a long time from now …and she said yes, I have so much to do.”
In lieu of flowers, the family encourages all who wish to send something to donate to The Elvis Presley Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit which offers support to organizations focusing on the arts, education and children’s programs in the Memphis and Whitehaven area.