Priscilla Presley is recalling the toughest days of her life in her new memoir Softly, as I Leave You: Life After Elvis.
Priscilla told People about the two toughest days she has loved through. The day she lost her ex-husband Elvis in 1977, and the day their only child, Lisa Marie Presley, died.
Lisa died in 2023 of a bowel obstruction caused by a bariatric surgery she had years ago. Her ex-husband Danny Keough found her unresponsive and took her to the hospital. He told Priscilla to meet him there.
"It was the second saddest day of my life, other than losing Elvis," Priscilla told People. "It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that Lisa was gone."
"We were there all day long," Priscilla said of the hospital. "Lisa really wasn't breathing, so she was on the ventilator. For hours we were there waiting, hoping and praying until the doctor came in and said, 'Priscilla, I'm so sorry, she's gone.' We just couldn't believe it — didn't want to believe it. It was hard on all of us, it still is."
Before she lost her daughter, she also went through the loss of Lisa’s son Benjamin, who died of suicide at the age of 27 in 2020.
"It hasn’t been easy at all," Priscilla said of the grief. "But you have to find strength."
Now, Priscilla finds solace in seeing her granddaughter Riley Keough and great granddaughter Tupelo, whom The Lodge star shares with husband Ben Smith-Petersen. The couple also shares another child whose name they haven’t revealed yet.