Riley Keough covers the latest issue of Vanity Fair. The interview was conducted before the strikes, and it was conducted after Riley and her grandmother worked out the legal issues over Lisa Marie Presley’s estate. Within a three-year period, Riley lost her brother and mother, she became a mother and she became the sole trustee of her mother’s complicated estate. She’s also one of three heiresses to Elvis Presley’s life and legacy, alongside her half-sisters Harper and Finley. Riley discussed all of this and more in what was a very moving interview. Like, it’s remarkable that Riley is just so grounded and, frankly, normal. She was a little bit of a wild-child, but mostly she’s just a suburban mom who has a lot of jobs. She also reveals her daughter’s name: Tupelo Storm Smith-Petersen. Some highlights from VF:
She asked VF to come to Switzerland, where she was having treatment: “I have Lyme disease. I used this little break that I have to come and try and see if I can alleviate it a bit. It’s a holistic treatment center and offers all kinds of things that you can’t really do in America yet, like cleaning your blood.”
She’s a workaholic & she doesn’t know where she got her work ethic: “This is my first break in a lot of years. I’m a workaholic.” I ask where she thinks she got her work ethic from. “Not from my parents. Not from anyone in my family. I came out of the womb like that. I think we’re half nature, half nurture. I was naturally somebody that was very punctual and hardworking and wanted to do things. My upbringing was very different to that. It was very no-schedule: Sometimes we go to school, sometimes we don’t. That was what I was used to, so I was living out my teen and childhood years as though that was what I wanted. I’m definitely an adventurous and spontaneous person, but I thrive on routine. My parents said when I was little, I was very much trying to organize things and make things happen.”
An American girl: Keough’s father is Irish and Ashkenazi Jewish. Her mother was Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, Indigenous, and “very hillbilly.” As for herself, Keough says, “I’m an American girl.”
Living in Neverland when her mom married Michael Jackson: “My whole childhood was probably very extreme. In hindsight, I can see how crazy these things would be to somebody from the outside. But when you’re living in them, it’s just your life and your family. You just remember the love, and I had real love for Michael.” I point out the surreal fact that Keough has called both Graceland and Neverland home. “Which one did I like better? I spent more time at Neverland than Graceland, to be honest. That was a real home, whereas Graceland was a museum in my lifetime.”
She’s not wild anymore: “I don’t think the wildness exists in the same way now. I don’t really drink anymore, but definitely in my late teens into my mid-20s, I was an adventurer. Now I’m a bit of a granny.”
Falling for Ben Smith-Petersen in 2013: “I remember it so vividly, I just knew that we were going to have kids. It was, in hindsight, very strange. I didn’t know how we’d get there, but we did.”
Her daughter: Tupelo Storm Smith-Petersen arrived via surrogate in August 2022. Keough says of surrogacy, “I think it’s a very cool, selfless, and incredible act that these women do to help other people. I can carry children, but it felt like the best choice for what I had going on physically with the autoimmune stuff.” As for her daughter’s name: Tupelo, of course, was the King of Rock and Roll’s birthplace in Mississippi.
On Priscilla challenging Lisa Marie’s will: “When my mom passed, there was a lot of chaos in every aspect of our lives. Everything felt like the carpet had been ripped out and the floor had melted from under us. Everyone was in a bit of a panic to understand how we move forward, and it just took a minute to understand the details of the situation, because it’s complicated. We are a family, but there’s also a huge business side of our family. So I think that there was clarity that needed to be had. Things with Grandma will be happy. They’ve never not been happy.”
When she last saw her mother: Keough saw her mother at a party for Elvis a day after the Golden Globes this year. “We had dinner. That was the last time I saw her. I remember thinking about how beautiful she looked, and that was my strongest memory of the dinner.” When Keough addresses the accumulated tragedies head-on, the sentences come in pieces: “I have been through a great deal of pain and I’ve had my.… Parts of me have died and I’ve felt like my heart has exploded, but I also feel.… I’m trying to think of how to phrase this.… I have strengthened the qualities that have come about through adversity.”
She isn’t shady or insulting about Priscilla at all, and she even gives Priscilla a lot of credit for what she did with the Presley estate and all of that. But there is still some drama there, and my takeaway is that Riley did not appreciate the fact that Priscilla marched into court right away to challenge LM’s will, and Riley hated that it all spilled out into the public sphere. But there’s conciliation there too. As for Riley’s grief… heartbreaking. She’s really been through it. I hope Riley, Ben and baby Tupelo find their peace.
Photos courtesy of Vanity Fair.
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