Elvis Presley’s Grandson Was so Similar to the Singer That It ‘Scared’ Lisa Marie Presley

In 2020, Benjamin Keough, the grandson of Elvis Presley and son of Lisa Marie Presley, died. This came as a devastating loss to Lisa Marie, who had been extremely close with her only son. She said she had long worried about him, though. She explained why Benjamin’s similarities to Elvis began to concern her.

Elvis Presley’s grandson reminded Lisa Marie Presley of her father

Benjamin never met his famous grandfather, but they looked strikingly similar. Lisa Marie said their personalities matched too.

“Ben was very similar to his grandfather, very, very, very, and in every way,” she wrote in her memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown (via CBS News). “He even looked like him.”

Lisa Marie loved her father, but she said it frightened her to look at her son and see his traits. 

“Ben was so much like him, it scared me,” she wrote. “I didn’t want to tell him because I thought it was too much to put on a kid. We were very close. He’d tell me everything. Ben and I had the same relationship that my father and his mother had.  It was a generational f***ing cycle.”

Elvis and his mother, Gladys, were incredibly close. When he joined the army, she became so concerned about him that her health suffered, ultimately resulting in her death.

“Gladys loved my dad so much that she drank herself to death worrying about him,” she wrote. “Ben didn’t stand a f***ing chance.”

Elvis Presley’s granddaughter knew Lisa Marie Presley would struggle after her son’s death

Lisa Marie’s daughter, Riley Keough, said she began to worry about her mother after Benjamin’s death.

“I knew this was the end of her. You know?” Keough said. “I just couldn’t imagine a world where she would make it without him.”

Lisa Marie died in early 2023, less than three years after her son’s death. Keough said she could tell there was something wrong in the weeks before she died.

“I think there was always sort of an undertone for me because of this feeling that I felt that I was on borrowed time with her,” she said.

They got matching tattoos after his death

After Benjamin’s death, Lisa Marie kept his body on dry ice in her Los Angeles home for two months. Before his burial, Lisa Marie got a tattoo to match one of his. He had her name on his hand, so she did the same with his name in the corresponding place on her body. 

“I think that the story could — on paper, I can see how this sounds completely insane and absurd,” Keough said. “But I — my mom was just very much herself.  And I — I don’t know if you knew her.  There’s nothing — you know, she wasn’t a crazy lady,”

The tattoo artist studied Benjamin’s hand in the casket to get the placement right.

“[The tattoo artist], God bless him, was very normal about the whole thing,” Keough said.

She got her brother’s name tattooed on her collarbone, just as he had her name on his.