Riley Keough Details How She Found Out About Her Mom Passing Away

Riley Keough / Instagram

In her new book, actress Riley Keough shared the devastating way she found out that her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, had passed away.

Three months before Lisa Marie Presley passed away, she asked her eldest daughter, Riley Keough, to help her finish her memoir. Riley agreed and sadly, after Lisa Marie’s January 2023 death, she had to make good on that promise. Perhaps Lisa Marie knew something we didn’t.

Titled From Here To The Great Unknown, the memoir was released on Tuesday (Oct. 8).

Lisa Marie Presley's memoir book cover
PEOPLE / Instagram

To make it clear who was writing, each author had their own font in the book. When detailing how she found out her mother passed away, Riley explains that she was filming a show in Canada. She received a phone call from her dad, musician Danny Keough, telling her that Lisa Marie had gone into cardiac arrest.

Riley found our her mom passed away through a text message.

Riley jumped on a plane back to LA, and as she was in the air, she would get text updates from her dad. Once those slowed down, she knew what happened.

Riley wrote, “I felt like my mother was between two worlds,” before telling us that she tried talking to her mom’s “spirit” to let her know that it was okay to “go.”

She finally received a text from her dad that read, “She passed a few minutes ago, honey. Didn’t want to tell you by text. But I’m worried it’s going to hit the papers. I love you so much I’m really sorry to tell you like this. I don’t want you to be blindsided when you get off the plane.”

Although she passed away at the young age of 54, Riley explains that she knew any time she got with her mom following her brother’s 2020 suicide was limited.

“I already knew, clear as day…that any time I got with her after what was about to happen would be a gift,” Riley wrote. “I couldn’t imagine her living without my brother.”

Lisa Marie Presley's twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood appear in a photo with their mom, sister Riley, and brother Benjamin in 2019
Lisa Marie Presley / Instagram

Riley says that their entire family knew that Lisa Marie would eventually pass away from a “broken heart.” Even after the autopsy revealed she passed away from complications following a bariatric surgery, Riley still believes her mother died of a broken heart.

From Here To The Great Unknown is now available.