Riley Keough was blind to the allegations made against Michael Jackson when he was briefly her stepfather.
“I was never told anything. It’s actually not something I ever asked as an adult,” Riley, 35, shared during her Wednesday, January 15, appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “I think it just was what it was. I don’t know, it just never came to mind, I guess.”
Riley’s mother, Lisa Marie Presley, married Jackson in 1994 following her split from Danny Keough. (Lisa Marie and Danny — who were married from 1988 to 1994 — shared Riley and late son Benjamin, who died by suicide at age 27 in 2020.)
“I would imagine that my dad was really heartbroken and reading the news and I’m sure that — I’m just imagining,” Riley said during Wednesday’s podcast. “I would imagine he said all kinds of things to my mom that we didn’t know about.”
Riley Keough Says Michael Jackson Was a ‘Very Normal’ Stepfather
Riley explained that Lisa Marie and Danny made it clear that they “don’t fight around the kids,” which is why she was never privy to any private conversations.
“We didn’t know anything. We didn’t know about any allegations,” she continued. “We didn’t know. We had no awareness of that.”
Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50, was accused of sexually abusing minors during the late 1990s and early 2000s but was never convicted on any charges.
“The one thing I know is that they were in love and that their love for one another was genuine,” Riley said. “I was there and I remember. Everything else, I don’t know, because I wasn’t there for [it].”
Lisa Marie addressed the allegations against Jackson in her posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which Riley contributed to before it was published in October 2024. (Lisa Marie died at age 54 in January 2023 after suffering cardiac arrest.)
Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley’s Bond Through the Years
“I never saw a goddamn thing like that,” she wrote. “I personally would’ve killed him if I did.”
As the granddaughter of the late Elvis Presley, the Daisy Jones & The Six actress recalled having a crazy life growing up. During the two years Lisa Marie was married to Jackson, things “got bigger.”
“I think when she saw Michael’s life, there were things that he had that she didn’t have,” Riley shared on Wednesday’s podcast. “She didn’t have a plane at the time or things like that. She then was like, ‘Oh, I should have a plane, and I should have this and that.’”
Riley compared the differences between her mom’s “simple” marriage to her dad, Danny, and her relationship with Michael.
“At home, like, she didn’t have 10 million assistants. She didn’t need all of that [with Danny],” Riley said. “I think that changed.”
