Michael Jackson and wife, Lisa Marie Presley who wanted to rock w/her music & book
MOSLEY: What was your relationship with Michael Jackson like? You were afraid when your mom first told you that he might replace your dad. But once you got to know him, how would you describe it?
KEOUGH: I think my mom says something in the book that people kind might pass over, which is really indicative of the whole thing, which is that, like, the version of Michael that was in her - our lives or that she was with was different to, I think, the version that he presented on TV, and even the way he spoke was different. And probably with Elvis, too, there's the version of Elvis Presley for the world, and then there's the version at home. And I think my experience with Michael was he felt like a human being and spoke differently. I remember the first time I saw him on TV, his register was higher, and that's not how I was used to hearing him. And I remember thinking that was interesting. So I think that in my life, he felt like my mom's husband, like a stepfather.
MOSLEY: There's an entire chapter devoted to Michael, and she makes clear that she loved Michael and that their romance was real. Did she ever talk about, though, the possibility that MJ could also be using her or the perception and how she felt about the perception that he might be using this as a publicity stunt? - because, like, he was in the midst of this child sex abuse - these allegations at the time as well.
KEOUGH: I think that my answer to that is that their love was very genuine. And they were in love, and they were in a real relationship and slept in bed together and were very normal. But I think that when you're that famous, there's a lot of people around, and I think both camps had people in their ears about each other. And, you know, my mom started to perceive that maybe he was on drugs, and he started to maybe get the idea that she was on to him maybe being on drugs. And then I think there was paranoia. I think my grandmother was apprehensive about the marriage and brought that idea up to my mom. And I think it just kind of exploded.
...
I want to ask you a little bit more about your mother's music career and her singing. She didn't come out with her own music until the early 2000s. What was her relationship to music and singing?
KEOUGH: I mean, it was everything to her. You know, when she's talking about getting through her grief and all of that in the book, she kind of talks about, you know, listening to Pink Floyd and, like, that music was kind of her escape. And I think that it was, like, a real release for her. And then when she started writing - like, the only reason she began to write and do music was - you know, it was totally personal. It was therapeutic.
MOSLEY: Record execs, though, were always trying to get her to countrify her music.
KEOUGH: (Laughter) Yeah.
MOSLEY: Did she ever talk about that and maybe the frustration she felt? 'Cause, I mean, she was, like, a - you know, she had the edge in her music - sort of rock, you know?
KEOUGH: It's so funny because, like, Elvis isn't very country. You know, I think maybe they're trying to appeal to - like, to a group of people, but, you know, it's rock 'n' roll. And she would come home all the time from the studio. She'd always play us her demos in the car and blast it really loud. And we'd sit in there, and I remember a few times where there'd be a song she'd write that I'd love. And she'd come home and go, you know, this is the new version, and it would be, like, twangy, you know, country - nothing against country. I love country, but, like, it wasn't what she wanted to do.
And I would say something. As a child, I'd say, you know, I don't like that. I don't like the guitar. I don't like this version. And she didn't either. And she was like, oh, God, you know? They're just trying to get me to do this. They want me to cover Elvis songs. So it was difficult, but, you know, she had so much fun. She loved being on tour. We had, like, the best time ever. We all went on tour together. I would go - me and my brother would go with them. My dad played bass. She was married to her husband at the time, who was her MD, and so we'd all go on tour together, and it was, like, a really fun, you know...
MOSLEY: Yeah.
KEOUGH: ...Experience as a family.
MOSLEY: She loved it, but I think she also said in the book it was really, like, disorienting to look out in the audience and see Elvis impersonators.
KEOUGH: Well, she used to, before shows, like, peek out the side of the curtain and find where they would be so that she wasn't surprised when she went out there. And she would just peek around and kind of go, OK, there's one in the back. There's one over there, like, so she wasn't shocked.
MOSLEY: Because it was disorienting because, like, she's seeing images of her father, but a caricature of her father in many ways.
KEOUGH: Yeah. I mean, it's like some kind of wild fever dream to go out on stage and perform to your dead father, you know, or, like, someone in costume. It's bizarre. I think that the way people - people's relationship to him was as if he was, like, this sort of, like, god, you know? And so I don't think there was a lot of humanizing going on with her. I think it was beyond. It's not that they had, you know, ill intentions. I think that they were just fans, and she just maybe didn't realize how weird that would be for her.
MOSLEY: Well, Riley, thank you for being so gracious with your time and sharing your story and your mother's story. And I'm so sorry for your losses, but I thank you so much for your bravery and talking about it with us.
KEOUGH: Thank you. I appreciate you talking to me.
MOSLEY: Riley Keough is an actress, producer and co-author of the new book "From Here To The Great Unknown," which she wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. Presley died in 2023 at the age of 54. Coming up, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Betsy Lerner's debut novel, "Shred Sisters." This is FRESH AIR.
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5148873/elvis-lisa-marie-presley-riley-keough-from-here-to-the-great-unknown
From Here to the Great Unknown
by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough |
ISBN13: 9780593733875 |
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments
In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir.
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.
Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother's wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.
To make her mother known.
This extraordinary book is composed of both Lisa Marie's and Riley's voice, a mother and daughter communicating across the transom of death as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other--the last words of the only child of a true legend.
About the Author
Riley Keough is an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award-nominated actress. She is known for her work in Daisy Jones & the Six, Zola, and more. She also co-directed War Pony (2022), which won the Caméra d'Or for best first feature at Cannes, and cofounded the production company Felix Culpa with Gina Gammell. She is the eldest daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and sole trustee of Graceland.
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Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780593733875
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Publication date:
- 10/08/2024
- Publisher:
- Random House
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 272
- Author:
- Author:
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