Lisa Marie Presley Says in Posthumous Memoir She Suffered 'Withdrawal in the Big Leagues' from Opioid Addiction (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Lisa Marie Presley in Hollywood in May 2015.Photo:Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage

The curtain is being lifted onLisa Marie Presley’saddiction struggles.

In the late star’s posthumous memoirFrom Here to the Great Unknown, which her daughterRiley Keoughcompleted after her mom’s death at age 54 in 2023, she discusses how she became addicted to prescription painkillers following the 2008 birth of her twins Finley and Harper (with ex Michael Lockwood, her husband from 2006 to 2021).

“For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn’t,” Lisa Marie says in the book, excerpted exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE cover story. “It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues.”

Lisa Marie Presley on the cover of the October 7, 2024, issue of PEOPLE.

Lisa Mariepreviously spoke about her addiction to painkillers and opioidsin the foreword for Harry Nelson’s 2019 bookThe United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain.

“You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids,” she wrote. “I was recovering after the birth of my daughters, Vivienne and Finley, when a doctor prescribed me opioids for pain. It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to keep taking them.”

Addiction had long been a part of Lisa Marie’s life: Her father,Elvis Presley, and her ex-husbandMichael Jacksonboth died of complications from drug use. Lisa Marie has also said she’d experimented with drugs during her teen years.

Lisa Marie Presley and mom Priscilla in 1981.Ron Galella Collection via Getty

To finishFrom Here to the Great Unknown, which she had promised Lisa Marie she’d help write prior to her death, Riley, 35, listened to taped memories her mom had recorded. Riley says her “mom’s descent into addiction” was an “incredibly difficult” chapter to write, as were the chapters about her death and the2020 suicide death of her brother Benjaminafter his own struggle with addiction.

Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley at the “Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone” launch party in April 2012 in West Hollywood.John Sciulli/WireImage

John Sciulli/WireImage

Riley says in the introduction of the book that, at times, her mom “sounds like she wants to burn the world to the ground; other times, she displays compassion and empathy — all facets of the woman who was my mother, each of those strands, beautiful and broken, forged together in early trauma, crashing together at the end of her life.”

Through the book, Riley hopes readers see her mother clearly, perhaps for the first time.

“I hope that in an extraordinary circumstance, people relate to a very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family,” she tells PEOPLE in an email interview. “[My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.”

For more on Riley Keough finishing her mom Lisa Marie Presley’s powerful memoir, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.

source: people.com