Riley Keough shed light on the “gift” of her late mother Lisa Marie Presley‘s recordings about her life.
While sitting down with Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on Live with Kelly and Mark on Wednesday, the Daisy Jones and the Six star opened up about helping finish Presley’s recently released memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown.
Consuelos brought up how Lisa Marie, the daughter of Elvis Presley, eventually found herself struggling to finish the book, leading to a conversation between her and Keough in which she asked for her daughter’s assistance.
Keough confirmed, “She did. She didn’t like talking about herself, which is a quality I loved about her.”
In fact, Keough described the timing of their conversation as “bizarre,” revealing that they talked in December 2022, just a month before her mother passed away in January 2023. As for what Keough learned about her relationship with her mother over the course of completing her memoir, she realized that they were “very close.”
“There wasn’t much in the book that I didn’t know,” she shared. “I think that there were details in some of the stories and how she met my father and these moments that I wasn’t aware of. But for the most part there wasn’t anything in there that we hadn’t talked about. I think I really valued that closeness.”
Ripa pointed out how Presley “recorded a lot of what she wanted to say,” recordings that Keough had to listen to following her death.
“I’m wondering what that felt like for you,” Ripa posed.
Keough reflected, “It was really difficult at first. It was very intense.”
She recalled the initially “very daunting” experience of putting on her headphones in bed to play the 16 tapes back, which she said were “in order of her life.”
“At first it was extremely emotional because it feels like they’re with you when it’s that much audio,” she said. “It feels like you’re on the phone or something. It’s bizarre. But then the stories get really funny, and they’re wild. And she’s wild. You know, she was a wild kid. So there was a lot of me just laughing with her, which was really sweet.”
Ripa added, “It’s such a rare blessing that I think most people wish they had. Sort of the chronology of their parents’ history, as told by their parent.”
Keough agreed, clarifying that she has “always been aware of that” and “know[s] that it’s a gift.”
Live with Kelly and Mark airs on weekdays. Check out their website for your local listings. From Here to the Great Unknown is out now.
