Priscilla Presley | Source: Getty Images
Priscilla Presley Opens Up about the Moment She Removed Daughter Lisa Marie from Life Support
The businesswoman detailed the day of her daughter's death in her new memoir, "Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis." She called it the "second saddest day" of her life.
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Priscilla Presley is allowing herself to be vulnerable about the moment she lost her only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. Lisa passed away on January 12, 2023, from a small bowel obstruction she developed after a bariatric surgery she'd had years prior. She was 54.
Priscilla Presley celebrates backstage with her daughter Lisa Marie Presley after Lisa Marie's performance at 3rd & Lindsley during the 14th Annual Americana Music Festival & Conference on September 20, 2013, in Nashville, Tennessee. | Source: Getty Images
"It was the second saddest day of my life, other than losing Elvis," Priscilla told PEOPLE in her new cover story, out this Friday. "It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that Lisa was gone."
Lisa's ex-husband, Danny Keough, was the one who found her unresponsive at home and called Priscilla to meet them at the hospital soon after. "We were there all day long," Priscilla recalled.
Priscilla Presley speaks onstage during the Screening of American Humane Society's Documentary "Escape from Extinction: Rewilding" at Rivian Laguna on April 19, 2025, in Laguna Beach, California. | Source: Getty Images
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She continued, "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."
In an excerpt from her memoir, "Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis," obtained by PEOPLE, Priscilla writes that she knew from the moment she walked into Lisa's hospital room that she was already gone.
Priscilla Presley and Lisa Marie Presley during 13th Annual American Society of Young Musicians' House of Blues Spring Benefit at House of Blues on June 12, 2005, in West Hollywood, California. | Source: Getty Images
"She was hooked to a machine that was breathing for her, and she had a heartbeat," she wrote. "There was little brain activity. Her spirit, always so vital, wasn't there." Even Lisa's daughter, Riley Keough, sensed it long before she arrived at the hospital.
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"Riley later told us that while she was still on her flight, she had felt her mother's spirit pass," Priscilla said. While she was outside Lisa's room, an emergency alarm went off, signaling that her heart had stopped.
(L-R) Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla Presley, and Riley Keough attend the Handprint Ceremony honoring Priscilla Presley, Lisa Marie Presley And Riley Keough at TCL Chinese Theatre on June 21, 2022, in Hollywood, California. | Source: Getty Images
"The next thing I remember is the doctor talking to me," she continued. "He asked me what I wanted him to do. They had restarted Lisa's heart, but there was no guarantee it would keep beating. I asked the doctor, 'What kind of life will she have if we keep her on that machine?'"
"He looked at me with compassion and shook his head. 'No quality of life at all,'" she remembered the doctor saying. Eventually, she made the devastating decision to pull Lisa from life support.
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