Priscilla Presley is reflecting on how daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s death impacted her relationship with her family.
“It’s kind of separated us in a way because, you know, we would get together and have meals and, of course, you know, have family,” Priscilla, 80, said during a speaking engagement at Westgate Las Vegas on Saturday, May 2, alongside son Navarone Garibaldi.
Lisa Marie died at age 54 in January 2023 from a small bowel obstruction, a complication from bariatric surgery.
Referring to Lisa Marie’s daughters with fourth husband Michael Lockwood, twins Finley and Harper, Priscilla continued, “[The] girls are 18 now, the twins. So they have their boyfriends and, you know, do their thing. It’s been, even though we’re close — what?”
Navarone, 39, whom Priscilla shares with Marco Garibaldi, jumped in to add, “I would disagree.”
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Three years before Lisa Marie’s death, her son Benjamin died by suicide at age 27 in July 2020. In Navarone’s opinion, this was the “first thing that separated” the family.
“When you would think that would be something that should bring everybody together, that somehow separated us further, because everybody grieves in different ways, and everybody felt, you know, put blame on somebody in different ways, and just felt different ways about it,” the screenwriter explained. “Somehow, that separated us further. … Now, after my sister died, I feel like now we’re actually coming closer together, and I feel like we’re all letting go of those feelings.”
In addition to mom Priscilla, half-brother Navarone and daughters Finley and Harper, Lisa Marie is survived by daughter Riley Keough. She shared Riley, 36, and Benjamin with first husband Danny Keough.
Nearly five months before her own death, Lisa Marie opened up about her grief after losing Benjamin and alluded to feeling abandoned by some family members.
“This is where finding others who have experienced a similar loss can be the only way to go,” she wrote, in part, in a lengthy essay for National Grief Awareness Day and shared with People in August 2022. “Support groups that have your specific kind of loss in common. I go to them, and I hold them for other bereaved parents at my home.”
Lisa Marie continued, “Nothing, absolutely NOTHING takes away the pain, but finding support can sometimes help you feel a little bit less alone. Your old ‘friends’ and even your family can and will run for the hills. The unrelenting reality is that you are FORCED into this horrendous ‘club,’ if you will, that you never wanted to be in or a part of, and you are FORCED to then, for lack of a better term, have to go and find your new people now.”
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The singer-songwriter concluded, “I now truly cherish the few who have stayed in there with us throughout this entire nightmare process from the onset. And I have also now come to love and cherish my newfound friends who are in this same ‘club.’”
Riley, 36, also shared insight into her family’s grieving process after Lisa Marie’s death in an August 2023 interview with Vanity Fair.
“When my mom passed, there was a lot of chaos in every aspect of our lives,” she explained at the time. “Everything felt like the carpet had been ripped out and the floor had melted from under us. Everyone was in a bit of a panic to understand how we move forward, and it just took a minute to understand the details of the situation, because it’s complicated. There was a bit of upheaval, but now everything’s going to be how it was.”
