Priscilla Presley said taking her daughter Lisa Marie Presley off life support in January 2023 was the "second saddest day" of her life after losing Elvis Presley, recounting the moment in an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir.
Priscilla, 80, described rushing to the hospital after Lisa Marie, 54, was found unresponsive at home by her former husband, Danny Keough. Lisa Marie was placed on a ventilator and had minimal brain activity, Priscilla said, and a doctor later told the family that continuing life support would leave her without any quality of life.
"It was the second saddest day of my life, other than losing Elvis," Priscilla told People in an interview accompanying the excerpt. "It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that Lisa was gone." She said family members waited at her daughter's bedside for hours as doctors tried to stabilize her and that a nurse later informed her that Lisa Marie had died.
In the memoir excerpt, Priscilla recalled that when she first arrived Lisa Marie "was already gone" and was being kept alive by a machine. She said there was "little brain activity" and that Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's daughter, told the family she felt her mother's spirit leave while on a flight. Priscilla said she was taken from Lisa Marie's room when a nurse told relatives to move to another area to eat and drink; she said an alarm sounded shortly thereafter, signaling a code blue and the end of Lisa Marie's life.
Priscilla described the moment a doctor presented the family with the choice to end life support. "When the doctor told me that Lisa would have no quality of life at all," she said, "I thought about my wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life, and I made the decision to pull the plug." She said she collapsed and does not remember what followed.
Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, died from a small bowel obstruction that developed after bariatric surgery she had undergone years earlier, authorities and medical reports indicated at the time. Her death in January 2023 prompted an outpouring of public grief and renewed scrutiny of her medical history.
The family has endured other recent tragedies. Priscilla's grandson Benjamin Keough, Lisa Marie's son, died by suicide in 2020 at age 27. Priscilla has also detailed struggles helping her son, Navarone Garibaldi, overcome drug addiction; she said he is currently sober and "in a good place." Priscilla said she has found comfort in being a great-grandmother to Riley Keough's two children.
Priscilla's memoir, Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis, is scheduled for release Sept. 23. An excerpt published by People includes the account of Lisa Marie's final hospital hours and Priscilla's description of the family's attempts to cope with grief and loss.
The account comes amid litigation that Priscilla and her lawyers have called baseless. Last month, former business partners filed a lawsuit accusing Priscilla of removing life support to "control" Lisa Marie's trust and Graceland assets, seeking $50 million and alleging breach of contract and fraud. Priscilla's lawyer, Marty Singer, called the filing "one of the most shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless" lawsuits he had seen.
Priscilla's public recounting of the decision to end life support adds a personal narrative to events that have remained the subject of public and legal attention since Lisa Marie's death. The memoir places that decision within a larger reflection on Priscilla's life after Elvis, describing both grief and the steps she said she has taken to support her surviving children and grandchildren.
The memoir excerpt and interview focus on memory and family, detailing how the Presley family navigated the medical crisis and its aftermath. Priscilla said it "was hard on all of us, it still is," and that coming to terms with Lisa Marie's death has taken time. The book's release will provide a fuller account of her perspective on those events and on her life in the decades since Elvis Presley's death.