In her memoir, Lisa Marie Presley allegedly maintained her deceased son's remains at her residence for a period of two months.
It's now clear how deeply she mourned his loss.
In "From Here to the Great Unknown," a recently published memoir penned by the late Presley, with contributions from her daughter, Riley Keough, they divulge that Presley opted to keep her son with them at home as opposed to leaving him at the morgue.
"They suggested that if we could take care of the body, we could have him there, so she kept him in our home for a while on dry ice," Keough, who used her mother's tape-recorded memories to complete the book, wrote. "It was crucial for my mom to have sufficient time to bid farewell to him, just like she had with her father. And I would frequently visit him in there."
Presley, the only child of the iconic Elvis Presley, was nine years old when he passed away following a suspected heart attack at the age of 42 in 1977. Presley herself passed away in January 2023 due to complications from previous weight loss surgery at the age of 54.
Presley, in her memoir, recounts keeping her son in a "separate casitas bedroom" she named "Ben Ben's room" after his demise.
"There's no immediate burial law in California," Presley explains in the book. "I found a compassionate funeral home owner. I told her that having my father in the house after his death was of immense help to me as I could spend time with him and converse with him. She said, 'Bring Ben Ben to you. You can have him there.'"
Presley recounts that the room needed to be kept at 55 degrees. She wrote that she considered herself lucky that she could still parent him, albeit temporarily, so she could come to terms with laying him to rest.
Both Presley and her son rest in peace at Graceland, where her father is also interred.
In the memoir, Presley mentions that visiting her son in his makeshift home helped her cope with his death, providing a sense of entertainment and connection beyond the grief. During this time, she found solace in keeping his room at a constant 55 degrees.
The funeral home owner, moved by Presley's request, allowed her to keep her son in their home, offering an alternative form of entertainment and comfort in the midst of her mourning.
