‘Frail’: Lisa Marie Presley’s private struggle before death
Lisa Marie Presley struggled to accept her son’s death before she died.
“Since the loss of her son, Ben Storm [Keough], Lisa did not go out,” Jerry Schilling recalled in an interview with People on the one-year anniversary of the singer’s death this week.
“I didn’t know she … was going to survive [his death].”
Keough was 27 when he died by suicide in July 2020, ultimately shaking his mother’s world.
“She survived that for two years because of the love and care for her three daughters,” Schilling continued.
Friends say Lisa Marie Presley never recovered from the death of her son Benjamin Keough. Picture: lisamariepresley/Instagram
Presley shared Benjamin and daughter Riley Keough, 34, with her first husband, Danny Keough.
She was also the mother to twins Harper and Finley, 15, with her fourth ex-husband, Michael Lockwood.
After years of grieving, it wasn’t until the making of Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 film, Elvis, featuring Austin Butler, that Presley decided to enter back into the spotlight.
“When we were flying back to Memphis for a screening, I met her at the airport. I hadn’t seen her since Ben Storm’s funeral,” the talent manager, 81, explained.
“She said to me, ‘Jerry, I will never be the same.’ She looked frail. But she was really trying.”
Schilling furthered he believes the support the singer received from Butler, Luhrmann and the film crew helped “bring her out.”
At last year’s Golden Globes, just two days before her death. Picture: Todd Williamson/NBC/NBC via Getty
He explained he was a close friend of Lisa’s late father, Elvis Presley, and was at the hospital when her mother, Priscilla Presley, 78, gave birth to her on February 1, 1968.
At one point, Schilling said he was also Lisa’s manager as she took on the music industry.
Schilling even accompanied Presley to the Golden Globes on January 10, 2022, to support the movie Elvis, which was up for three awards.
It would be one of the last times he would see Lisa, as she passed away just two days later.
“I get the call two days later to rush to the hospital. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t,” he shared.
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Presley died unexpectedly on January 12, 2023, of complications from a small bowel obstruction after suffering a cardiac arrest.
Small traces of opioids and antipsychotic drugs were found in her system but did not contribute to her death, per an autopsy report obtained by The Post.
The mother of four was laid to rest at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, alongside the King of Rock ’n’ Roll and her son, Benjamin.
SOURCE: NEWS.COM
