Riley Keough Says Mom Lisa Marie Presley 'Died of a Broken Heart' After Son Benjamin’s Death (Exclusive)

"My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in," Riley Keough tells PEOPLE

Riley Keough is opening up about the deep toll grief took on her late mom Lisa Marie Presley.

In an email interview for this week's PEOPLE cover story, which features an exclusive excerpt from Lisa Marie's posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Riley discusses her brother Benjamin's death by suicide at age 27 in 2020, and how it played a role in her mom's death at age 53 three years later, from a small-bowel obstruction that developed after she’d undergone bariatric surgery several years prior. (Lisa Marie shared Riley and Benjamin with ex-husband Danny Keough, and 15-year-old twins Finley and Harper with ex Michael Lockwood.)

“My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in,” says Riley, 35. “My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart.”

Lisa Marie was long vocal about her grief — she wrote that she’d never “move on” from Benjamin's death in an essay for PEOPLE in 2022 — and says in the memoir that she and Riley healed “by helping people. One kid wrote to Riley and said, ‘I didn’t kill myself last night because of what you said it would do to my family and those that are left behind. So thank you.' That helped me. That brought me up.”

Related: Lisa Marie Presley Said She Was 'Destroyed' by Son Benjamin's Death but Kept 'Going for My Girls'

Riley says she also found respite in Nick Cave’s 2016 documentary film One More Time with Feeling, which she describes as "a really beautiful portrayal of grief."

To finish From Here to the Great Unknown, which she had promised Lisa Marie she'd help write prior to her death, Riley listened to taped memories her mom had recorded. Riley says her brother's death "was incredibly difficult to write about, as was my mom’s descent into addiction. And her own death, of course."

Riley makes it clear, though, that her mom's story isn't "only about grief."

Related: Lisa Marie Presley Said She Was 'Destroyed' by Son Benjamin's Death but Kept 'Going for My Girls'

With the memoir, "I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family," Riley says. "[My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world."

"Her hope with this book was just human connection," she continues. "So that’s mine."

Related: Lisa Marie Presley's Life in Photos

Riley will next discuss the book in an Oprah Winfrey special airing on CBS and Paramount + on Oct. 8, the date of the book's release.

Excerpted from FROM HERE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough. Published by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Riley Keough

From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough comes out Oct. 8 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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Read the original article on People.