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How Lisa Marie Presley’s matching tattoo with her son Ben Keough helped her grieve
When Lisa Marie Presley’s son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in 2020 she began living on borrowed time, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough told Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive prime-time special “An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley,” airing Tuesday on CBS.
“I just couldn’t imagine a world where she would make it without him,” said Keough as she recalled the final years she shared with her famous mother, and how she processed her brother’s death, as she finished co-writing “From Here to the Great Unknown,” Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir.
“She would say ‘I’m going to die of a broken heart’ and I think we felt that,” Keough told Winfrey.
Lisa Marie’s grief was so immense that she kept Ben’s coffin in her home for about two months after his death. She worked with a funeral homeowner to ensure the body was preserved — using dry ice — until it was ready for burial.
“Everybody in the house was in the grieving process,” said Keough, adding that Lisa Marie felt comfort when she sat by the body.
During the mourning period, Lisa Marie called in a tattoo artist to help get her ink before laying Ben to rest. She wanted to have a tattoo like his on her hand — the same place he had a tattoo.
“My mom was just very much herself,” Keough said. “She wasn’t a crazy lady.”
Keough recalls how Lisa Marie took the artist to Ben’s coffin to show him the tattoo placement, ensuring that the placement would be exactly right.
“He’s like, okay, do you have any photos?” Keough remembers the tattoo artist asking. “And she was like ‘No, but I can show you.'”
Keough said the tattoo artist was very professional, studied the placement, and created the meaningful tattoo for Lisa Marie.
The tattoo honoring their mother-son connection proved how close the pair were. In her memoir, Lisa Marie wrote about how much Ben resembled her father Elvis.
“Ben was very similar to his grandfather, very, very, very, and in every way. He even looked like him. Ben was so much like him, it scared me. I didn’t want to tell him because I thought it was too much to put on a kid. We were very close. He’d tell me everything. Ben and I had the same relationship that my father and his mother had. It was a generational f-–ing cycle. Gladys loved my dad so much that she drank herself to death worrying about him. Ben didn’t stand a f-–ing chance,” Lisa Marie wrote.
Stream Winfrey’s exclusive hourlong interview with Keough on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. “An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley” will stream live on Paramount+ for “Paramount+ with Showtime” subscribers and will be available on demand the next day for “Paramount+ Essentials” subscribers.
If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, you can reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. You can also chat with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline here.
For more information about mental health care resources and support, The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine can be reached Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–10 p.m. ET, at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or email info@nami.org.
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The northern lights made an incredible display over much of the United States on Thursday — and might make a return appearance Friday night.
The aurora borealis was visible as far south as Florida on Thursday. Photos show the sky lit up in red and purple, even in some brightly-lit areas like New York City and Chicago.
The strong geomagnetic storm that created such a show has subsided, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but some parts of the U.S. may again see the northern lights tonight. Here’s what to know.
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images
Where will the northern lights be visible tonight?
The northern lights will be visible for parts of the northern U.S., according to the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center’s aurora forecast. The aurora will be visible over much of Canada and Alaska, but the northern lights can also be seen from as far as 620 miles away if the conditions are right, NOAA says.
Parts of Idaho, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin may be able to see the lights Friday night. On the East Coast, the aurora might be visible in northern New York and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Areas of Maine may also see the northern lights.
The lights will appear to the north when it’s dark outside. If you can’t see them with the naked eye, they may be visible through a phone camera or other device.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
What time will the northern lights be most visible?
The northern lights are most visible just after sunset or just before sunrise, NOAA said. The aurora is not visible during the day. Dark, cloudless skies with little artificial light provide the best viewing experience.
Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Why have the northern lights been so visible lately?
Over the last several months the sun has been incredibly active, unleashing a series of coronal mass ejections from its surface, CBS Boston reported. That’s resulted in multiple visible aurora shows.
The geomagnetic storm responsible for Thursday’s stunning skies is now subsiding, CBS Boston reported. That means there will be less chance of seeing the aurora on Friday, but there may be more opportunities in the future.
Shawn Dahl, a forecast coordinator with the Space Weather Prediction Center, told CBS Boston that the northern lights have been so intense lately because of where the sun is in its 11-year solar cycle. Dahl said that “we are in the midst of solar maximum.”
Heather Kepple
“What that means is the sun is now this twisted-up mass of strong magnetic fields, and some of these are so localized and intense they reveal themselves as these sunspot groups,” Dahl said. “That’s the source of a bunch of the space weather storms that we’re looking for and predict.”
What causes the northern lights?
The northern lights are caused by interactions between the sun’s solar winds and the Earth’s protective magnetic field, according to NOAA. Those two phenomenons result in geomagnetic storms and increased geomagnetic activity.
The higher the geomagnetic activity is, the better your odds are of seeing the aurora. Increased geomagnetic activity means the aurora will become brighter, more active and visible farther from the poles of the planet, NOAA said.
Even moderate solar wind creates the aurora, NOAA said, so there is usually a weak aurora visible from somewhere on Earth. The best places to see these weaker auroras is close to the planet’s poles, like in Greenland or southern Argentina. If you see the aurora near the North Pole, it’s nicknamed the northern lights. The same phenomenon near the South Pole is called the southern lights.