Lisa Marie Presley, only child of Elvis, dies aged 54 after reported cardiac arrest

Remote video URL

LOS ANGELES – Lisa Marie Presley, an American musician and the only child of rock ‘n’ roll legend Elvis Presley, died on Thursday after being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital. She was 54.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” her mother Priscilla Presley said in a statement.

“She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss,” the statement added.

Lisa Marie suffered cardiac arrest in her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas, according to entertainment website TMZ. The mother of four was then taken to hospital on Thursday.

Elvis Presley and his wife Priscilla preparing to leave hospital with their daughter Lisa Marie in Memphis, Tennessee, on Feb 5, 1968. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

She was born in 1968 and was the owner of her father’s Graceland mansion in Memphis, a popular tourist attraction. She was nine years old when Elvis died at Graceland in 1977.

Father and daughter were extremely close, with Elvis once flying her to Idaho after she said she had never seen snow. He named his 1958 Convair 880 private jet “the Lisa Marie”.

Singer Lisa Marie Presley performing during a rehearsal at the M Bar in London on May 12, 2003. PHOTO: REUTERS

Her own music career began with a 2003 debut album, To Whom It May Concern. It was followed by 2005‘s Now What, and both hit the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart.

A third album, Storm & Grace, was released in 2012.

She was married four times. She wed pop star Michael Jackson in 1994, just 20 days after her divorce from her first husband, musician Danny Keough.

The high-profile couple divorced in 1996 as Jackson was battling child molestation allegations.

American pop star Michael Jackson and his wife Lisa Marie Presley arriving at Budapest airport on June 6, 1994. PHOTO: AFP

Lisa Marie married actor Nicolas Cage, a huge fan of her father, in 2002. Cage filed for divorce four months later.

Her fourth marriage was to her guitarist and music producer Michael Lockwood in 2006. Their divorce was finalised in 2021.

She had four children. Her only son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 at age 27. Daughter Riley Keough, 33, is an actress.

Her other daughters are twins Harper and Finley Lockwood, 14. 

Before her death, United States media reported she was in intensive care following cardiac arrest, and in an induced coma on life support.

TMZ said she was “unresponsive” when her housekeeper discovered her at her home on Thursday morning in the celebrity-studded LA suburb of Calabasas.

Her ex-husband Keough, who also lives at the property, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation until paramedics arrived and transported her to the hospital.

The outlet said its sources stressed it was not a suicide attempt.

Lisa Marie and her mother were seen together on Tuesday at the Golden Globe awards in Beverly Hills, where Austin Butler was awarded Best Actor in a drama for his turn as Elvis in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the same name.

Butler, whose fizzing performance has earned wide praise, thanked the two women during his acceptance speech.

“I also want to thank our incredible producers and Warner Bros and the Presley family. Thank you, guys. Thank you for opening your hearts, your memories, your home to me. Lisa Marie and Priscilla, I love you forever,” he said.

In a foreword of a 2019 book, The United States Of Opioids: A Prescription For Liberating A Nation In Pain, Lisa Marie wrote about her struggle with addiction.

In a 2022 People magazine essay, Lisa Marie said her life had been struck with death, grief and loss since her childhood, writing that the suicide of her only son Benjamin had been a devastating blow to her and her three daughters.

“Grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss,” she said. “Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe.” REUTERS, AFP, NYTIMES

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.