If there were a classification to categorize the nepobabies (that neologism popularized to define the descendants of celebrities turned into celebrities) of the hills of Los Angeles, the actress Riley Keough (Santa Monica, 33 years) would occupy the first positions. The interpreter, granddaughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley and daughter of Lisa Marie, has been carving out her acting career for years, but for a while her name was a constant claim in the fashion industry. Descending from the Presley lineage was the master key that allowed him to debut at age 14 on the catwalk with Dolce & Gabbana. A year later she would walk for Christian Dior, a firm that signed her for one of its perfume campaigns, and in 2006 for Victoria's Secret. In record time she achieved what many professional models do not achieve in a whole career, covers in Vogue magazine included. Keough, however, says she is aware of her position: "I am very privileged. You know the story of moving to Los Angeles and taking three years to get an agent? I had it in a week," he acknowledged in 2017 in statements to the British newspaper The Guardian.
In 2023, the series Daisy Jones and the Six (in Spanish Everyone wants Daisy Jones) has returned Keough to the media spotlight thanks to the leading role he holds in this fiction based on the best-selling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, issued by Amazon Prime Video and with Reese Witherspoon as one of the executive producers of the project. The daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough has proven that music and the sense of spectacle runs through her veins. The 10-episode series is set in the seventies and deals with the formation of a successful rock group, called Daisy Jones and the Six, whose members must deal with the ego and talent of their two singers. One of them is Riley Keough (Daisy Jones) and the other is British actor Sam Claflin (Billy Dunne).
Priscilla Presley Reaches Agreement with Her Granddaughter, Riley Keough, Over Lisa Marie Presley's Will
In the story of Daisy Jones there is music, drugs and love triangles, a combination that has conquered the younger audience, delivered thanks to the show to the seventies music of groups like Fleetwood Mac, on whom it is said that the writer of the book was based to imagine the history of the band. The last chapter ends with a concert dated in 1977, the year in which the group dissolves and the protagonist decides to abandon everything to recover from her problems with drugs. In the real world it was precisely in 1977 when Elvis Presley lost his life after long years fighting addictions, a parallel with the king of rock that joins others deciphered by fans of the series. For example, when Riley Keough plays guitar in one of the episodes, he wears the same strap that Elvis wore on stage. "It was the idea of the art department. They said, 'We have a guitar strap that musicians used to use in the seventies, including your grandfather,' and I was fine with that," Elvis' granddaughter told Collider.
A fan phenomenon that goes beyond the screen
The bet of Amazon Prime Video has become one of the successes of the season and the songs of the soundtrack, which in turn are the themes interpreted by the group Daisy Jones and the Six, in promising successes. In fact, one of the songs, Let me down easy, has made history by becoming the first fictional song to reach number one downloads on Itunes, Apple's platform. Such is the fan phenomenon unleashed, that it is rumored if the band could get to tour in real life. At the moment, there is nothing confirmed about it and it seems complicated to be able to square the agenda of the entire cast. Nor is it known if there will be a second season, but what is clear is that the hard work of months has paid off. "The schedule on the show was crazy. We recorded for nine months or so during covid. It was difficult to carry physically and emotionally, apart from coping with the loss of my brother [Riley Keough's brother, Benjamin Keough, took his own life in July 2020, when the production of the series was starting to start]," Keough confessed in Collider about the intense recording, also hindered by the Lyme disease that the actress suffers.
It is inevitable to link the name of Riley Keough with Elvis but the truth is that the interpreter never got to know her grandfather, who died 12 years before his birth. The one he did treat very closely was Michael Jackson. After her marriage to musician Danny Keough failed, the late Lisa Marie walked down the aisle with the controversial artist, to whom she was married between 1994 and 1996. Keough's childhood (and his younger brother Benjamin Storm Keough) was spent between the impressive Graceland mansion in Memphis, inherited by his mother after Elvis' death, and his trips to Neverland, Michael Jackson's famous ranch in Santa Barbara. In an interview published in T Magazine, the interpreter referred to the ranch as a place "full of toys, animals and children. It was like being at Disneyland every day."
Riley Keough on 'Everyone Loves Daisy Jones.Amazon ©/Courtesy Everett Collection/Cordon Press
Jackson wasn't the Keough brothers' only famous stepfather. In 2002 Lisa Marie married actor Nicolas Cage at a wedding in Hawaii, a fleeting love story ended three and a half months later. Keough's childhood cannot be described as normal – much of her education was at home rather than in schools – but she says that as a child she did not feel strange, although in her adult life her opinion has changed: "I think it was similar to what the children of the Kardashians experience today (...) I couldn't do normal things," she explained in Vanity Fair when asked about her childhood in the public eye.
After trying his hand at fashion during his teenage years, it was finally acting that caught his attention. She debuted on the big screen at age 20, with a role in the biopic The runaways, where she gave life to the music Marie Currie. The opportunity that multiplied his visibility in the industry came with the 2012 film Magic Mike, by Steven Soderbergh, the director with whom he has worked the most throughout his career. There he had a secondary role but important enough to participate in the promotion of the film, give interviews and go to red carpets. To strengthen his career he tried to achieve, unsuccessfully, star roles in titles such as Snow White and the Hunter or The Hunger Games. In 2015 she was in the blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road, where she met her husband and father of her only daughter, an Australian stuntman whom she married in 2015.
Leaving aside his participation in several blockbusters, it seems that he has found his place in the film industry and independent series. In 2016 she achieved her first and so far only Golden Globe nomination for her starring role as a law student turned escort in the series The Girlfriend experience. Without getting involved in too commercial projects, in the last decade she has chained one job after another trying to stay oblivious to everything that surrounds the Hollywood universe that she knows so well. In his filmography there are outstanding titles such as American Honey (Andrea Arnold, 2016), with Shia LaBeouf, or Zola (Janizca Bravo, 2020), works that have earned him several nominations in different awards of the independent film circuit. In 2018 he was placed under the orders of Lars Von Trier in the controversial psychological horror film Jack's House, with Uma Thurman and Matt Dillon.
Riley Keough's Family Tragedy
Her favorable professional moment – in addition to performing her work as an actress, since 2017 she has her own production company called Felix Culpa, with several projects on the horizon – counteracts with a personal life hit by tragedy. His brother Benjamin, who shared a strong resemblance to his remembered grandfather, took his own life in July 2020 at age 27. It was a blow to the family, who were still not recovered when only five months ago they had to face the death of Lisa Marie. The eternal daughter of the king of rock died on January 12 of a cardiac arrest at age 54. In addition to her eldest daughter, she left two teenage twins, Harper and Finley, the result of her marriage to musician Michael Lockwood, with whom she spent a decade, until their divorce in 2016.
Precisely as a result of the separation, Lisa Marie's problems with tranquilizers and opiates, prescribed by prescription after her last birth and towards which she had developed great dependence, transcended. Just two days before the death, Elvis' only daughter had gone to the Golden Globes with her mother and the rest of the team of the film Elvis (Baz Luhrmann, 2022), one of the great premieres of last year, with 288 million dollars of collection and success of public and critics.
From left to right, Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood, Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla Presley, Riley Keough and Finley Aaron, at a ceremony honoring Elvis Presley, June 21, 2022.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin (FilmMagic)
Confrontation with Priscilla
Lisa Marie's death has begun a bitter chapter in the life of her daughter Riley Keough. The distribution of the vast inheritance of the mother, estimated at more than 100 million euros – Forbes magazine ensures that Elvis Presley is the fourth celebrity who generates more income after death – has been the trigger. According to reports in US media, Priscilla Presley initiated litigation to clarify a change in her daughter's will that occurred in 2016. Now, grandmother and granddaughter have reached an agreement on the will and both parties seem happy.
Until 2016, it was Priscilla and Lisa Marie's former business manager, Barry Siegel, who were listed as co-trustees, but that year an amendment was introduced that eliminated them in favor of Riley and his brother Benjamin. They would be the heirs to the Graceland mansion and 15% of Elvis Presley Enterprises, as well as Elvis suits, cars, prizes and other objects owned by Lisa Marie, according to the Los Angeles Times. After Elvis' death, Lisa Marie was the sole heir, as her parents had separated in 1973. The relationship between granddaughter and grandmother would have cooled so much that, according to what was published in some tabloids, Riley could have banned Priscilla's entry to Graceland, where her daughter Lisa Marie, her grandson Benjamin and, of course, Elvis Presley also rest. Now, the waters seem to have calmed down. Priscilla herself has stated that, after the court ruling, her family is "closer than ever". But we will have to wait until August, when there is another hearing scheduled, to know if the peace is really sealed.