Riley Keough is sharing a few candid thoughts about about her late mother Lisa Marie Presley’s marriage to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
Appearing Tuesday on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast, Keough took a look back on the two years she and her late brother, Benjamin Keough, had Jackson as their stepfather.
“Our life wasn’t crazier because that was already there. That already existed, like the press and the crazy, the paparazzi and, you know, all that,” she explained. “But … I think when [Lisa Marie Presley] saw Michael’s life, there were things that he had that she didn’t have. She didn’t have a plane at the time, or things like that.”
“So she then was like, ‘Oh, I should have a plane, and I should have this and that,’ and so our life in that way kind of got bigger,” she added. “Before that, she was with my dad, and their life was very simple … she didn’t have 10 million assistants. She didn’t need all of that, and I think that changed.”
Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, was married to pop star Michael Jackson from 1994 to 1996.
Lisa Marie Presley married Jackson on May 26, 1994, less than a year after splitting from Keough’s father, Danny Keough, after about six years of marriage.
Given that Lisa Marie Presley was the daughter of music legend Elvis Presley, her marriage to Jackson was perceived as the merging of two era-defining cultural dynasties. Their union, however, was short-lived, and the couple split in 1996.
As host Alex Cooper pointed out, Lisa Marie Presley and Jackson’s marriage came shortly after Jackson was first investigated by police after being accused of sexual abuse by the families of four children. The 13-time Grammy winner denied the allegations and was later acquitted, but the claims would continue to be revived until his death in 2009 at age 50.
Riley Keough (left) with her mom, who died in 2023 at age 54, at an Oct. 16, 2017, Women in Hollywood event in Los Angeles.
Keough, who was just 5 years old when her mother wed Jackson, said she was “never told anything” about the accusations during the marriage.
“I would imagine that my dad was really heartbroken and reading the news, and… I would imagine he said all kinds of things to my mom that we didn’t know about,” she said. “The way my parents parented was very much like, ‘We don’t fight around the kids. We don’t ever say anything around them.’ We didn’t know about any allegations. We had no awareness of that.”
Keough, whose acting credits include “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Daisy Jones & the Six,” has spent much of the past few months on a promotional tour for her mother’s posthumous memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown.”
Though Lisa Marie Presley was still at work on the book at the time of her January 2023 death, Keough used her mom’s audio recordings to complete it.
Other news outlets have retreated behind paywalls. At HuffPost, we believe journalism should be free for everyone.
Would you help us provide essential information to our readers during this critical time? We can’t do it without you.
You’ve supported HuffPost before, and we’ll be honest — we could use your help again. We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can’t do it without you.
Whether you give once or many more times, we appreciate your contribution to keeping our journalism free for all.
You’ve supported HuffPost before, and we’ll be honest — we could use your help again. We view our mission to provide free, fair news as critically important in this crucial moment, and we can’t do it without you.
Whether you give just one more time or sign up again to contribute regularly, we appreciate you playing a part in keeping our journalism free for all.
Support HuffPost
Listen to Riley Keough’s “Call Her Daddy” interview here. Her comments on Michael Jackson begin around the 23:40 mark.
Michael JacksonLisa Marie PresleyRiley Keough
