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It was a ritual every year, but it became an omen: on January 8, Lisa Marie visited Graceland, her father’s house, for the last time.
Documented from birth and marked by the last name, the show, the music and, at the same time, the tragedy: this was the life of Lisa Marie Presley, the only daughter of the king of rock Elvis Presley.
For her, the lights went out forever on Thursday after she was found unconscious at her residence in Calabasas (California, United States) and, according to local media, having suffered a cardiac arrest.
His last appearance in public generated some concern. She looked glamorous, elegantly dressed in black, with an upturned hairstyle reminiscent of Priscilla, her mother, when she was young.
But he also showed difficulties walking and expressing himself.
It was Last Tuesday at the Golden Globes galawhere he went to support “Elvis”, the biopic about his father directed by Baz Luhrman.
And, almost as a harbinger of a farewell, days before he visited Graceland, the mythical mansion of Elvis in memphisTennessee, to celebrate what would have been the rock star’s 88th birthday on January 8.
He starred in his first cover only to the born, in 1968.
Throughout his 54 years he reaped many more: some due to his foray into the world of music, many others due to his multiple marriages and some, as on this occasion, due to more disastrous events.
Here we make a brief I review the moments that marked the life of Lisa Marie Presley.
image source, Getty Images
“I have dealt with death, grief and loss since I was 9 years old,” Lisa Marie wrote last August.
The first divorce and the first duel
On August 16, 1977, the terrible news was given: Elvis Presley had died at the age of 42.
For the world of music it meant the loss of the king of rock. For Lisa Marie, just 9 years old, it was the death of daddy“Daddy”.
Doctors said the artist died of a heart attack that was likely caused by his addiction to prescription barbiturates.
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Lisa Marie with her father, rock star Elvis Presley.
This event deeply marked Lisa Marie for her entire life. “I have dealt with death, pain and loss since I was 9 years”he wrote last August.
Elvis adored his daughter and even named his plane after her. After her divorce with Priscilla, in 1973, when Lisa Marie was 4 years old, the girl went to live with her mother, but she regularly visited the singer.
Just a few years ago, he revealed in a television interview that he would occasionally ask his late father for help.
“It’s not that I talk to him per se, but I do pull memories that I have from my memory file and yes, I occasionally ask him for help. And I can feel a hand reaching out to me.”
image source, ZUMA Press, Inc/Alamy Stock Photo
Elvis adored his daughter and even named his plane after her.
Problematic adolescence and addictions
After Elvis’s death, the mother sent the little girl to different private schools. That’s where Lisa Marie’s dangerous journey began: she began to “misbehave and experiment with drugs.”
“I was in real self destruct mode for a while. I never really fit in at school. I didn’t really have any direction.”.
Although what he had to deal with was a great feeling of loneliness.
“I was a bit of a loner, a wistful, strange little girl,” Lisa Marie told the newspaper. Los Angeles Times.
In 2019 he came to openly describe his opium addictionYodes and painkillers in the book The United States of Opioidswhere she also confessed to being grateful for still being alive.
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Lisa Marie Presley in 1991.
He told CNN that this began to become stronger in 2008, after the birth of his twin daughters.
According to his testimony, he gave up drugs thanks to the Church of Scientology, which he said was “a form of self-help, self-discovery.”
“When I fell, they helped me pick myself up.”
high-rise marriages
At just 20 years old, Lisa Marie said “yes” for the first time at the altar.
It was in Morocco, in 1988, with the musician Danny Keogh. She with him she had two children, Benjamin and Riley.
They separated six years later, but they maintained their friendship, so much so that Danny was the best man at Lisa Marie’s last marriage, in 2006, to Michael Lockwood, an American guitarist and producer with whom she spent 10 years.
image source, Getty Images
Her most famous marriage was with the king of pop, Michael Jackson.
Between both marriages, he had two more. One of them, thatOnly lasted three months, with actor Nicolas Cage in 2002. Of this union he came to say that they had a great connection because the two were “a kind of tyrannical pirates with a free spirit.”
Although it was precisely this connection that made things not come to fruition: “If one pirate marries another, they will sink the ship,” he revealed.
After the news of Lisa Marie’s death broke, the 59-year-old actor said: “This is devastating news. Lisa had the best laugh I have ever known. She lit up every place and I am heartbroken. I take comfort in the belief that she has been found again with his son Benjamin.
But the most notorious marriage was the one that turned the young dand daughter of the king of rock to the wife of the king of pop: Michael Jackson.
image source, Getty Images
Lisa Marie and actor Nicolas Cage.
From Graceland to Neverland
The wedding with Michael Jackson was an austere and lonely ceremony in Dominican Republic in May 1994.
At the time it created a lot of confusion and gossip said that it was an agreement between them. It was at a time when the that just apthey were the first accusations against the singer about child abuse.
It was even said that Jackson wanted to appropriate the rights to Elvis’s songs just like he had done with the Beatles.
To silence rumors, they allowed themselves to be seen in the that year’s MTV ceremony.
But not in any way: they did it on stage, making jokes about their relationship and giving each other a kiss that, for many, was overacted.
image source, Getty Images
To silence the rumors about their false relationship, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie appeared at the MTV gala in 1994.
It would not be the only time they would show affection. The famous video clip of the songyou are not aloneit is a display of kisses and whispers in the ear with both half naked.
Rumors about the falsehood of the union only grew.
The couple finally separated in 1997.
She told the magazine rolling stones in 2003 that he had felt attracted to his mysterious lifestyle and wanted to protect him from accusations of child abuse.
Lisa Marie also said that she was “not proud” of their brief marriage, which was so bad that by the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, the hostility between them was evident.
She watched him from the audience as he performed a medley of hits.
“It just got really ugly at the end,” he said.
image source, Reuters
Lisa Marie finally dared to take the reins as a singer and in 2003 she released her first album.
Number 5 on the Billboard chart
Although her father’s shadow was long and the last name carried weight, Lisa Marie finally decided to be the center of attention as a musician, in her own right, in the late 90s.
She had written songs in her youth, but the pressure of being Elvis’s daughter was an understandable impediment to making her music public.
In 1997 sang the song Don’t Cry, Daddy (1968) by his father. And, thanks to the sound mixes, she did it as a duet with him.
Songwriter and producer Glen Ballard then encouraged her to make solo music and coordinated a deal with Capitol. The release of her debut album was scheduled for the year 2000. But in the middle of it came her split with NIcolas Cage and she had to postpone it.
Finally, his first album,To Whom It May Concertno, came out in 2003followed by two more in 2005 and 2012.
It reached number five on the Billboard chart, while her second album reached the top 10.
his third, Storm & Gracea collaboration with T-Bone Burnett, only charted at number 45, but had a much better critical reception.
image source, Getty Images
Lisa Marie and her son Benjamin in 2010.
Lisa Marie leaves behind what could be described as a story of confrontation and often overcoming tragedy.
Just two and a half years ago, in July 2020, his son Benjamin took his own life. It was a hard blow for a woman already accustomed to the ups and downs of life.
In a text that he wrote last August in reference to the death of his son, he recounted:
“Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life., despite what certain people or our culture wants us to do. You don’t ‘get over it’, you don’t ‘move on’, period.”
In that same letter he said that he published it with the hope to encourage those around grieving people to help.
“Ask them how they are, ask them to talk about the person they lost. Yes! We WANT to talk about them. So we keep them alive in our hearts, so they’re not forgotten, that’s what keeps us alive too. And do me a favor , don’t tell them they ‘can’t imagine’ their pain. The truth is, ‘oh yes you can, you just don’t want to’.”
Perhaps that message will end up being his legacy, as his family now faces yet another tragedy.
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Lisa Marie Presley dies: the turbulent life of the only daughter of rock legend Elvis Presley