Riley Keough will join her 14-year-old twin sisters and grandmother Priscilla to Graceland — her late grandfather’s renowned Memphis house — on Sunday for a tribute for her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, according to family sources.
The gifted actress and filmmaker, 33, has spent the last year promoting the successful film “Elvis,” directed by Baz Luhrman and starring Austin Butler.
Only four days before Lisa Marie’s passing, the mother and daughter were spotted together at the Formosa Café in West Hollywood, celebrating Elvis Presley’s 88th birthday.
Bobby Green, the restaurant’s owner, said that Riley and her mother sat “arm in arm” at Elvis’ favorite table.
Riley Keough, the actress from “The Terminal List,” has lost her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, and her brother, Benjamin Keough, in the last two and a half years. Here’s a look into her everyday life.
“The only time they were apart was when Austin sat between them, his arm across both,” Green explained. “It was such a wonderful family atmosphere with Austin and Baz.”
“We had great hopes for the next awards season,” Green added.
Lisa Marie Presley passed away on January 13, leaving behind daughters Riley and twins Finley and Harper.
Lisa Marie’s death has complicated Oscar nominations for Riley and the family.
Lisa Marie, 54, died of cardiac arrest on January 12, just two and a half years after her son, Benjamin, committed suicide at 27.
Michael and Riley, Lisa Marie’s and Danny Keough’s children, were exceptionally close — so much so that Riley later memorialized her brother by getting his name tattooed on her collarbone and preparing to become a death doula in the aim of bringing comfort and support to dying people and their families.
Riley has built a thriving Hollywood career in recent years, with appearances in the Amazon Prime program “The Terminal List,” Starz’s “The Girlfriend Experience,” and the film “Zola.” Last year, her co-directed film “War Pony” won the prestigious Camera d’Or award for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival.
Riley will play a free-spirited ’70s singer in Amazon’s highly anticipated adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel “Daisy Jones & The Six,” which will premiere soon.
She explained how she got the idea for the endeavor from her mother.
“I grew up with someone who did their own thing and didn’t care what others thought. She was certainly an influence on me,” Riley remarked.
Riley was reared in Scientology by her mother and father, Danny, who is considered church royalty in specific ways because his stepmother, Karen Hollander, was president of Scientology’s International Celebrity Center in Los Angeles.
Yet, as Riley revealed in 2017, her father does not live like royalty.
“I grew up incredibly fortunate with my mother, but my father did not. And I believe that having been on both sides has been beneficial.” She added that Danny, a musician who has lived in Hawaii and Los Angeles, had mattresses on the floor of his apartments.
“He lived in trailer parks and cabins. He didn’t have much money… When I was about eight, I told him, ‘I want to grow up and be impoverished like you!’ He was munching on cereal. I had no idea how offensive that was!”
Riley resided in Southern California with her mother, including at Neverland Ranch during Lisa Marie’s 1994-1996 marriage to Michael Jackson and at the Scientology headquarters in Clearwater, Fla.
Following Lisa Marie’s death, Page Six uncovered how her mother, Priscilla, introduced her to Scientology as a young child. On the other hand, Lisa Marie allegedly quit the church in 2012 after a disagreement with Scientology leader David Miscavige.
Mike Rinder, one of the top three Scientology officials until “blowing” the church in 2007, said Lisa Marie and her children changed their minds about the religion over time.
“There isn’t a black and white answer,” Rinder told Page Six. “The only one who has never wavered is Priscilla.”
Rinder claimed to have spent hours with Lisa Marie at her Los Angeles home and assisted her in leaking a story to the Los Angeles Times in 2015 about how Miscavige had private investigators pursue his father, Ron.
“She contacted me from Nashville during the Ron Miscavige fiasco,” Rinder, author of “A Billion Years: My Exodus from Life in the Top Ranks of Scientology,” claimed.
“Suddenly, [Lisa Marie] said, ‘Riley’s here and wants to talk to you,’” Rinder stated. “Riley called me and said, ‘I want you to take those f-kers down.’”
“Since Lisa Marie was so unhappy, Riley supported her mother,” he said of the then-25-year-old.
Rinder is unsure whether Riley left Scientology as a result of this. “It’s difficult to figure out these guys,” he said.
Riley’s representative did not respond to requests for comment.
Rinder believes Lisa Marie returned to the church later in life for help overcoming addiction, especially to opioids she said were prescribed for pain relief after the birth of her twins.
Riley has never spoken publicly about Scientology, but she remains close friends with several of the young Hollywood Scientologists she grew up with, including “The Walking Dead” actor Alanna Masterson and Lillie Price, the late Kirstie Alley’s daughter.
When she was barely ten years old, Karen de la Carriere, a former high-ranking Scientologist who was Lisa Marie’s “auditor,” or counselor, told Page Six that Riley is still in the religion.
“The Church does not comment on parishioners,” a spokeswoman for Scientology told Page Six. “We are heartbroken by Lisa Marie’s death. During this awful time, our thoughts are with the family. The Church has a cordial and caring relationship with Lisa Marie.”
“What’s truly worrisome is that Riley has inherited one-third of Graceland, which is a huge moneymaker and will continue to be so in perpetuity… Riley will be surrounded by vultures,” according to de la Carriere.
Amid her grief, she is supported by her husband, Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen, whom she married in Napa, California, in February 2015.
The couple met on the “Mad Max: Fury Road” set in Namibia, Africa, in 2013 and fell in love during re-shoots in Australia a year later.
“Everything is great when you’re falling in love,” she wrote in Vogue Australia last year, revealing they had a Hindu ceremony in Nepal, where they built a school, before their wedding in the United States.
“My hubby is such a wonderful person,” she continued. “He’s calm, loyal, strong, and sensitive… I’m looking forward to having children.”
Riley has stated that she still mourns her brother’s death, Ben. On October 21, she shared a snapshot of the two of them as toddlers on Instagram, writing, “You would be 30 today. Happy birthday, my angel and best friend. Without you, the world seems odd.”
