Following the news of Benjamin Keough’s suicide on Sunday, a music video duet of Lisa Marie Presley with her late father, Elvis Presley, “I Love You Because” has resurfaced, and features her 27-year-old son. The video is a photographic journey through the Presley family history, from Presley’s famous father, all the way through to the family in 2012 when the video was made.
According to USA Today, 27-year-old Keough died by suicide on Sunday. TMZ has reported his death was due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Presley’s manager, Roger Widynowski, confirmed the news in a statement, stating that Lisa Marie “is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley.” The statement goes on to share how she “adored that boy” and he was “the love of her life.”
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Keough is Presley’s son with musician Danny Keough. The pair married in 1988 and divorced in 1994. During the course of their marriage, they had two children: Benjamin — who was born in 1992 — and his older sister Riley Keough, who was born in 1989. Despite their marriage not working out, Presley and Danny remained close throughout the years. After they split, she described her relationship with Keough to the Star Tribune: “I don’t know how, but we’ve managed to stay close … There’s others that I have pain or betrayal associated with that I won’t have anything to do with. But he and I had a special thing. Unconditional.”
Keough, Elvis’ only grandson, once pursued a career following in his famous grandfather’s footsteps by signing a record deal with Universal in 2009, per The Hollywood Reporter. The contract would have seen Keough deliver a total of five albums, but nothing ever manifested from the deal. In 2013, Presley spoke with the Huffington Post, and stated that she was letting her son do “his own thing.”
She added, “He’s doing his own thing right now. I’m going to let him decide when he wants to go out and do what he wants to do.” Reportedly, Keough was the inspiration for her 2012 song “Storm & Grace,” as his middle name is Storm. Among the song’s lyrics: “You have the most beautiful heart/That I’ve ever known/It kills me you can’t ever show it/And a shell has been grown.”
If you or someone you know are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741.
