Riley Keough
Appearances
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
No, no, no. I'm very emotional. I'm just not somebody like at a dinner party. Got it. If a lot of people are talking, I prefer to listen. It's just that. It's not like I'm like internalized. I'm very open with my emotions.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Got it. I'm just not like a big chatter.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I am now. I wasn't. I've grown. I've changed. You're doing great. I don't know. I hope.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Wow. I think I also had a moment of like, she had like her rebellious moment. I also had that like where I would sneak out and
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I can't say this. It was for breaking and entering.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So it was actually, so I went to a party at my friend's house. Okay. But I didn't know that it wasn't my friend's house. It was a house for sale. And so most people, like the police came and most people like got away and then about 10 of us got arrested. My mom was pissed. Did she try to, like, get it not in the papers?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Luckily, it didn't get – it wasn't in the papers.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Oh, yeah. I was grounded for, like, three months. And I was grounded on my, like, 16th or 15th birthday or something. Yeah. That's tough. I was grounded and – She was in Las Vegas and I had to call her and tell her to come back from Vegas and pick me up in prison. I've never told anyone this. You're like, mom, I'm in jail. She's like, I'm on the strip, bitch. What? No.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So she's like, I can't get there. So she sent my aunt to come get me and- Uh, so, you know, I had a moment, I had a moment, like a moment as a teenager and she also did.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I don't think they auto-tuned it. I think the whole point was because it was meant to sound 1970s that you wouldn't do that. You sounded gorgeous. I felt proud that I was able to do it because there was a conversation about potentially getting vocal stint
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So my mom, I was like, we were in Florida and I was sitting on her lap and she said, me and your dad are getting a divorce. And I took, like the way I received it was that he wasn't my dad anymore. And it was like, it's so memorable to me because I just was destroyed. I didn't understand what a divorce was. So I just thought like, he's not my dad now.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Um, but the great thing was shortly after, like they were so close and they really cared about keeping them, you know, our family dynamic the same. So he was at our house and staying over. And so he was there a lot. So I think I kind of forgot about it, which was amazing.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah, like a really unique, like it was a very unique experience, especially in the 90s, you know, to have both of your parents sort of like brother and sister, really close, living together. He lived with us for a lot of my life when my mom had other partners and other husbands. He would live in the guest house.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And so my, what was modeled to me was when you break up with someone, you stay friends with them. And I really like apply that to most of my relationships because that was kind of all that I That was what I saw with my parents. And it was really beautiful. I mean, they were they were like best friends and I don't know if they should have been married.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
No, because I think that like it was never a forced thing. I think I just I don't know how I did it. There were there was like one relationship that there was, you know, no friendship there. But for the most part, all the other ones, I don't even know. It wasn't I wasn't like consciously thinking about it. We just ended up friends.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Well, my feeling was always like, this is a person that I love, that I spent a lot of time with. Why wouldn't I have them in my life? Yeah. If, you know, unless it was like some like crazy unhealthy situation. Yes. Of course, it's uncomfortable for a minute. But I think ultimately, if it's someone that I really cared that much about, then I'd want them in my life somehow.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
doubles or something oh my god and so I felt really determined to make it work and I feel proud we made it work you know I I don't think I'm like the best singer in the world and I you know that's fine you made it work with flying colors I made it work um I love how you're like oh like I no no I like never sang from my research you and Dakota Johnson were in a band together in New York City don't lie to my face
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Mm-hmm. Our life wasn't crazier because that already existed, like the press and the crazy, the paparazzi and all that. But her life, I think when she saw Michael's life, there were things that he had that she didn't have, like she didn't have a plane at the time or things like that. And so she then was like, oh, I should have a plane and I should have a you know, this and that.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And so our life in that way kind of got bigger because she, before that she was with my dad and my dad, their life was very simple. Not, not with the press and the craziness, but in terms of like at home, like she didn't have 10 million assistants and, you know, she didn't need all of that. And I think that changed.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
It's so funny because I get tagged in these photos all the time where we're wearing like a hat and glasses. And I'm like, what does that do? It's so weird. Stunning. Like a hiding. I don't know.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
There was a lot of closing down things for us. Well, it was kind of the only way that our family could do things. If we wanted to go to a toy store or something like that, or ride rides. I don't know if it was necessarily done for us or just for... our family situation where we had to shut the, you know, the toy stores and stuff.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
But there was one memorable time in London where we were in the toy store. So it was just my brother and I in the whole toy store. And we were just like going floor to floor to floor and like filling up our thing. And yeah, that was the first thing that comes to mind. But I don't know if it was for us or just like the way that our life was, you know?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I think she was an amazing parent and she wanted us to have, I think like her father did, these amazing experiences all the time. For me personally, I... I think that the problem there could be for some that when you're used to so much, it's hard to find joy in simple things. And so I...
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
really want my children to be able to find joy in just, you know, playing in the backyard and doing normal kid stuff and not need like elephants and circus and, you know, like all these things all the time. So that's probably what I would do differently. But I think her intention was really you know, wanting to give everything she could to her kids.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I think that there was a time in my life where I was like, oh, we're not gonna, you know, let me think of a good example of this. Like Like even going to dinner growing up was like 50 people. It was like a big deal. Everything was a big deal all the time. So there was more of like a loneliness that I experienced in my 20s when our life was a bit different.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I was just used to having so many people around and everything being so intense that I felt a little bit lonely when my life was smaller, I think.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
This is so funny. This comes up so often. And like, I think that we need to do something here because yes, we were in a band, but the band was me and her sitting with her brother around a table in her apartment in New York with photo booth, like doing covers of songs. But here's the thing. Neither of us were confident singers. So we would just kind of like all sing together.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
unit it feels like this isn't as fun this isn't as when really like it could be more intimate and you can have stronger connections and it's not it doesn't mean it's not fun yeah but there's this feeling it's that it's that exact phenomenon but like probably just a little different but yes it's like probably the same feeling you'd get if you you know came from a huge family and had big family gatherings all the time and then it was just you know
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
you or you moved somewhere and you're just like, what?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I was never told anything. So even as it's and it's actually not something I ever asked as an adult. Why do you think? I don't know. I think it just like was what it was like. I didn't. I don't know. It just never came to mind, I guess. I would imagine that my dad was really heartbroken and reading the news. And I'm sure that I'm just imagining. Of course.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I would imagine he said all kinds of things to my mom, you know, that we didn't.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
know know about but nothing like the the way my parents parented was very much like we don't fight around the kids we don't ever say anything around them there was no like we didn't know anything we didn't know about any allegations we didn't know nothing we had no awareness of that as an adult when you look back on that time of your life like how do you feel about it now um
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I mean, the one thing I know is that they were in love and that their love for one another was genuine, you know, because I was there and I remember everything else like I don't know because I wasn't there for, you know.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
That's really interesting. I definitely would be really upset. Like when she would break up with people, Michael, her other partners, I would cry. I'd get mad at her. I really was upset. Like I'd get mad at her. I'd be pissed, you know, not knowing what happened, but I was always just mad at my mom for the breakups. So it really affected me. My attachment style. The one thing I know is that like,
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
throughout, through all of her relationships, everyone would always go, she should have stayed with Danny, who's my dad. And so I always have this voice in the back of my head that's like, she should have stayed with Danny. And I know that she was someone who, when things got
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
boring or mundane or difficult she was like see ya you know and I think that there's this part of me that feels like I don't know staying with If you're so lucky to find somebody who is like your kind of best friend in the way that they were to try and like, you know... Make it work. Make it work.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Wait, what was the band called? It was Folky Porn.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
When I was younger, I was very hard to pin down. I was not interested in, you know, sticking around. Yeah. And I definitely like didn't have the best track record there. So that I think would tie to sort of my mom's way of like, you know –
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
moving on once the the thrill the thrill is you know whatever that when i was a teenager i was like uh that makes sense yeah i'm curious like was there any part of you that was ever nervous to get married no which is so stupid I mean, I was young. I was 25 when I got married. Oh, my God. I was a little girl. And you weren't nervous? I wasn't nervous. I was so excited.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I didn't know what marriage was. I hadn't been in a relationship longer than three years, you know? Like I didn't think about it.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah, I didn't really think I was. Yeah, it wasn't impulsive or anything. I just like knew that he was the person. I knew he was the person I was meant to have kids with. I just knew it. So I don't know. And neither of us were like neither of us ever put any pressure on it either. It wasn't like we still don't.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
We're not like our marriage will never fail and we're going to be together till we're 80. You know, like we're both kind of like if we ever were unhappy, we would get divorced.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
You know, you're realist. We're realist. We're like, whatever. Yeah.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
There were just not a lot of boundaries. It was very like everyone knew everything about everybody. And everyone was involved in everybody's. If I was breaking up with a boyfriend, like she was involved. You know, like it was like that kind of a thing. Everyone, you know, my brother, my dad, like we were very enmeshed, I think.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yes. I think that there was a certain point probably in my mid-20s when I sort of became more of the caretaker in the relationship. And I think it was around when she became addicted to opiates. Because she was always sort of the like leader in our family. And then she had, you know, fell into her addiction. And at that point, I sort of
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yes. You know? And you're like, wait. No. Who's seeing this?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
But I think – and it's – What are the ways, if you're comfortable in sharing, that you find yourself in that situation?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I have to say like, that is something that I really am going to try my best. I don't know if it's just inevitable, but like as a parent, like I don't ever want my kids to feel like they have to take care of me or unless they literally do. But I mean like emotionally, you know? I don't want my children to feel like my happiness is their responsibility.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I think there's another, you know, I think you just have to accept that you're going to do stuff wrong. Yeah. And you're going to end up like your child is going to end up talking to the therapist about you. It's just part of being a parent. So I for me, I just I try and not, you know, read into it or read anything at all.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I don't read, but I think there's so much pressure, you know, to improve on the future generations as, you know, whatever. And so I think, I don't know. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
She only would talk about him. So she never would... I don't think she processed her grief. Like, I think that because her grief was so public... she would hide a lot of her feelings because they felt personal, like something she could keep to herself. So I think because of that, she didn't really talk about the grief so much.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And I think in her late 40s and when she was 50, she started realizing that she hadn't really ever talked about it to anybody, which I think is also common with older generations. Nobody was talking about all their things.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
The only like step that I've actively taken is to like feel my feelings. That's a good step.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
You know? And some of them have been extremely unbearable. And whether that's grief or anxiety, sadness, like I think that feeling my feelings has been the only conscious thing that I've done and trying to be present in my feelings. Could you give –
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Cool. Were the other people in the band also loose guys? musicians?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Well, I've had a lot of family members who have had addiction issues that I will and won't say on air because it's their personal story, but more than just my mother. And it's been a really interesting life because I've been surrounded in a way with people suffering from addiction, but there's never anything I can really do about it. And I found myself kind of going like, what is the lesson here?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Like to be around people, harming themselves and and nothing I do will change it and so the only thing that I could do was surrender to what is you know yeah and uh of course I mean with my mom it was a
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
you know, years of me trying to drag her into, you know, rehab or get her help or like so much effort, you know, and thinking like this is going to be effective every time and not really being present in the fact that the person sitting across from me is not participating in my plan, you know? So I just was, I mean, that was, I tried really hard to, you know, keep all of these plates spinning.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And then ultimately it resulted in like, you know, addiction sort of resulted in the loss of two of my family members. I was kind of forced to surrender. And I think that It's a really hard line because you can't do nothing because you feel like, you know, you have to. Someone you love is suffering. You have to do everything you can to help alleviate the suffering.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So I wouldn't necessarily like take back all of the effort that I put in. But it's just a weird lesson in like, I don't know. I don't know what. I actually don't know.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah, something my mom always would say is she'd say, tough love doesn't work. And that was – I didn't give tough love. That's not part of who I am. But to other people around her who would try and, like, enforce things. Yeah. And I really agree with that. Like, I don't think that personally, like – unless the person is really causing harm –
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
or is a threat to you and your safety or, you know, then it's very different in addiction. But I never withdrew love in moments of, you know, difficulty through addiction. And I really believe that, you know, I think there's a lot of like when you watch those TV shows that are like about
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
You know, whatever addicts and stuff and they're dragging them out of, you know, these are human beings that are in pain. Yeah. So I think that always operating from a place of empathy to me was always felt right.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So Dakota and I didn't get like that far into it. We kind of like it lasted maybe like three days. And then it was over. The band broke up.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah. It was a really strange experience because I never was, we were never having the same experience. Like in my experience, I was always being very, I was being firm, but I was always very gentle. And to them, it was like, you're making me feel so bad. Like they took it, everything was really, was received really intensely. And it wasn't my experience.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So I think there's so much like shame around addiction that it's really hard to like have, you know, honest conversations. But I, you know, like... I don't know. It wasn't like I'm in the room, everybody's leaving me out or something. It was a slow burn too.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I really leaned on people who had had similar experiences because it felt so isolating. I had friends who had lost... loved ones in various ways. And I found that to be the most comforting because I just wanted them to tell me that I was going to be okay, you know, from someone who'd experienced it and say, like, you're going to survive this. And because in the, in the moments that,
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
In the moment itself, particularly losing my brother, I didn't see a way that I could. So I wanted to just talk to people who had lost a sibling, had lost someone in a sort of more shocking sort of way, like the way I lost my brother, people who had experienced suicide. I just wanted to hear just from them. But then I had an amazing group of friends around me and husband.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah, I would go on. I would go on like Reddit. I would literally go on forums and go like, and just because it was such an isolating experience. Right. And like read people's experiences and like blogs. Wow. Like I DM'd with people on Instagram who DM'd me who had also lost their siblings. Like I would just talk to them and be like, did you feel this way? Did you feel this way?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
We became friends because we both grew up in L.A. and just there was some kind of I had a friend who was friends with her boyfriend and we met at like an in and out parking lot. And then we went to all the same parties in LA at like 16, 17. And I'd see her out and about. And then I became friends with her boyfriend. And then so I went to go see his band play.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So anyone who had experienced it, I would literally- Talk to. Talk to.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I just do a Google. I'm not like deep. I don't have an account.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah. I got into it because a friend of mine was a death doula and because of what I was just saying, how I felt like when my brother died, there were no resources and I was literally going on Reddit. Yeah. I found a community of people who worked in like the death world.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And I didn't know that that existed. And she was a death doula. And I just thought if I could make myself of use at all to people who were experiencing death.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
anything like this i i would so i yeah i did my death doula training and got certified it's based it's essentially like what a birth doula is okay for dying and you're taught how to be with the dying wow person do you find like that kind of also continues to heal you while you work with other people or is it at all triggering if something is similar that they're going through that you've been through
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I wouldn't say triggering. I would say you're very empathetic. It's hard to, because you've experienced something, you're very much with them emotionally because it's a shared lot, like a experience of grief. So yeah, I think it's just, it's not that I'm triggered and thinking of my own But I'm very much emotionally with the person.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
energy, which was very intense. And it made me really empathize with her. It's funny. I've been doing press for years. I've been acting for a long time. And typically, it's a pretty good experience. When I went out to do press for this book, the vibe I got from certain interviewers was aggressive. Like, tell me this thing, tell me the answer to this. Why did this happen?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Like a more like, like putting me on like in the hot seat kind of experience, which I've never like as an actor, I'm just having a nice time doing press, you know? And I was like, wow. because it's like related to my mom. I'm getting the energy my mom would get, you know?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And she was always there and she was like the coolest girl. The coolest.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I'm like, wait, this does not happen anymore.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yeah, I'm like, do you want to fight? That's crazy. Yeah. But then I realized like, What she would have been dealing with.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
She still is. She is. And then we just, I don't know, became friends.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
It's really wild. Like, I don't quite understand either. It's like, there's still movies all the time. Like, and I'm like, this is, you know, it's amazing that somebody could, you know, impact this. people so much. It's really unique. And I really appreciate it because, of course, we love our family. you know, want other people to as well.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
But I do, I do often go like, there's always like in my inbox, like this movie and that movie and Elvis's. And I'm like, wow, it's really. Still popping. Still popping.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I do feel relief because it felt like this thing that I knew was coming that was going to be this big thing and I did sort of want it to be over. Yeah. You know? I think this is like my last podcast, by the way. Woo!
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I'm going out with a bang. I love it. I love it. And I yeah, I don't want to think about my trauma all day, every day.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
No, I didn't want to. I don't know. To be honest, I had no expectations.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I can give you tea. I just don't really have any. But if there's anything you can think of, I will get I'm a tea giver.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I think getting to learn to sing and play guitar was my favorite part because it was... I think that's one of my favorite things about acting in general is learning a whole new skill set. And this one was very... Normally, you do a few rehearsals or do if you're, you know, training to do, I don't know, to be a dancer or whatever. I don't know. Like I've never done something so involved.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
But the solo solo is a first. Here's my answer. I'm not like technically on like a press tour right now. So I'm not I have I have no problem going places all by myself.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Oh, my gosh. That's such a hard question. I don't know. I have no idea. Like in what way?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
So do you want them to be famous or not? I mean, famous is fun.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
It's so funny because people – I do this a lot and where people will be like, how would your friends – or what friends could we speak to about you for this interview? And I give like my – all my closest friends and they're like, but – What about like famous ones?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
We don't care about Cassidy. We don't want, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny. Okay. Should I try Zoe Kravitz?
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I don't know. I didn't really hear much. She said I was loyal. She said you were loyal. I blacked out. Really good at keeping secrets. I got nervous.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I got nervous about what she was going to say.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Like I haven't had to fully learn to like sing and play guitar. So I found that really fun.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
This book came to be because my mother was in the middle of writing her autobiography. And in December, she came to me and said, you know, I need help. Like, she couldn't – she didn't really – I think she just got to a point where she was –
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
feeling frustrated and and she she didn't like talking about herself so writing an autobiography was difficult and she asked if i would help her um and then she passed away a month later so i just found myself like it was just this thing that i had to do so i just completed her memoir which was you know very intense how long did it take you Oh my gosh. Probably about a year. Yeah.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Well, I think that when I started working on the book, it was only like three, four months after she'd passed away. So it was very intense, and I didn't really want to be doing it, to be honest. It felt like this thing I had to complete. And so I was a little bit resistant in the beginning.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
And it's also like... It's very out of my comfort zone to write a story or tell all the things... Like my family's personal... All these vulnerable things about my family. Right. It's not something that I...
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
We were doing, yeah, like we had band practice every day and it was like a year long. But we needed it. Like none of us, not none of us, a few of us had never picked up an instrument and or sang.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
would do otherwise you know so it was there was a lot I felt very very resistant but ultimately I was doing it for her and it's what she wanted and I knew how much she wanted to finish her autobiography and share her story um so people could understand her more and also so she could relate to people and she's been through so much and I think that
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
largely why she did this was to kind of share her experience in grief and addiction and these very human things. And so, yeah. So I would say that I... I did it, but I wasn't like really excited to do it.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Yes. And, you know, particularly in my family growing up and with my mom, she was extremely private. She hated talking to the press. She didn't want to be famous. She was born into a situation she really didn't enjoy. And growing up in the world we grew up in was very private, very secretive, very like everything was a security issue. There was no talking to friends about things.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Our family stuff was – everything was very private. So it was a lot of – I had to push through that sort of –
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
uncomfortable feeling of like sharing all this information but the other thing is is like as a person i'm a very honest person and i also couldn't imagine so she like she was uncomfortably honest so i think i i couldn't have imagined a version of her book where she didn't you know share all these things yeah and like go all in yeah your baby photo was sold for three hundred thousand dollars on the cover of people magazine like
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
You know, like if I if I like shared the day to day growing up, it would probably be like, you know. crazy to give us a little come on well it was just a lot of like thing like it was very like high security and like for going somewhere it was like lots of people following us and very like intense and chaotic and like going through you know i don't know like how are you so calm uh I don't know.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I'm not at all. Internally, I'm burning down all day.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
Never. No, I still would never. I'm not a singer.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
I was very quiet. Really internal. I wasn't... I got called shy a lot, but I actually wasn't shy. I just was very internal. Like I just didn't have a lot to say and just was, yeah, I was very quiet. I was like that actually most of my life until I started to realize that people would perceive that as rude. So I really pushed myself to, you know.
Call Her Daddy
Riley Keough: Nepo babies, Addiction & Grief
It's fine. They didn't auto-tune it, but I have a fine voice. I just got by, but I'm a realist and I'm not a singer.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
It was like 2021 or something, or 2020 when she started saying like, trauma, I have trauma, you know, which was amazing, but like so late in her life.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
What's interesting is that I definitely as a child could perceive her grief, like I could feel her sadness. But it's such a, like you're saying, such a unique experience grief that I didn't truly understand her grief until I lost my brother as well. And then imagining... you know, a child, like a nine-year-old sort of having that experience and with a parent.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So it's a, I mean, very normal human things, but a unique circumstance. Sorry for your loss. Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
her mom? I've thought about this a lot when writing the book. And before my mom passed away, I didn't think about their relationship a lot. They've had a complicated relationship through my life, but we've all been fairly close. There was never a moment where anyone was estranged. Their dynamic was, there was always something my mom was wanting that she wasn't being given.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
But we still spent holidays together and weekends. So I didn't totally consider their relationship until after she passed and I was writing the book. And I think that my relationship with my grandmother, which I think is really common, is very different to hers with her mother. And I think that fundamentally, they were very different people. My grandmother...
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Really cared about appearance and manners and kind of old school kind of, you know, wanting everything the house to be perfect and and her priorities were sort of wanting things to present as perfect or, you know, and I think that a lot of that was from the pressure she probably experienced.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
being 14 years old and having to be, you know, the partner, soon partner of Elvis and this like sort of perfect woman in the 1960s, you know, which is really intense for her. So I think that she felt a lot of pressure to be this, the most beautiful woman in the world, the most perfect woman in the world and wanted to keep her
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
role as Elvis's partner essentially from 14 so I take that into consideration a lot I don't know if my mom did you know I think to her it was just her mom like I don't know if she would if she thought about that much and there's a sense feeling in her that's sort of like, I don't want the plates to fall in my grandmother. And I can see where that comes from.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think when it's so close that it's your mom, you don't always give the grace there. Of course. But my mom was such a sort of like radical woman in the time she was born. And I think that she didn't care about the things you're supposed to care about as a female at the time.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And, and really was so unapologetically herself and, you know, not crass or anything, but just real, just authentically her, which to me is such a, like in hindsight, when I look back on the time period she grew up in, the way she was raised didn't, feel like that would be, you know, the sort of outcome of her personality.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So I think that she just was a, I don't know, the Elvis part of her, maybe like that she was kind of a big force for better or worse. And my grandmother is very sort of soft. And I think they definitely had a difficult time. And I think that when I watched it as an outsider, it always felt to me that my mom was looking for something that her mom wasn't able to to be or to give her.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I think it did. And I think, honestly, it scared the shit out of most people. And I think that she was so honest, like existed in so much honesty. that it was hard for people to sit with a lot of the time. Like, I remember being a kid and friends would come in and she wouldn't even do anything. And they'd be like, oh, your mom is scary, you know? And I'm like, why?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Like, she's this tiny little lady and she didn't even say it, you know? And I think it's just, there was no filter or kind of social pretense or anything. And I think that that presence would often frighten people, but there was no meanness. You know, it was just, uh, I don't know what, how, how did she keep that?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
That's what's so incredible to me about her is it was never nurtured. It wasn't something that people praised. She was always a problem. Any school, any situation, she was praised. being, you know, she was difficult. Um, and she never, ever dimmed that part of her, which I always found to be so inspiring about her. I'm not like that. I'm, I'm very, I'm like a dimmable chandelier.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I'm like, me too. If I walk in a room, I'm like, Oh, you know, shouldn't do that. Shouldn't be here. Um, but she just, you know, it was, it was a really incredible quality that I definitely think it's actually quite profound.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Well, I think that I just sort of perceived them that way. And I think that there was just this environment that was like, especially in the 90s, it was very like... My mom was... They were very like anti-establishment, kind of like very not wanting to follow the rules. Told me like I didn't have to go to school. You know, it was very like... kind of anarchy, you know, was the vibe in my house.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And both my parents were kind of, though my dad is actually very sensitive and quite soft. And so was my mom was extremely sensitive. She just, you know, was very at a strength to her that was sort of unshakable. My dad was more of a softer, though he was very sort of wild and charismatic and all these things. He was quite like sensitive and fragile.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think that I got, and my brother as well, got more of that than my mom's sort of... That's not true. I think we both have had her strength as well, but... I think that he was, I definitely can see more of my demeanor in my father. But we always felt very close, the four of us. Like I didn't feel like I was different or anything.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I actually felt really quite similar to my brother and to my parents. But I think that as I got older and into my 20s, like when I was younger, we would all hang out or party together in my early 20s or do these things.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
get very drunk on the holidays like that was very normal but then into my later in my 20s it became you know my brother's drinking was it just there there was just something about it that just felt darker I would say yeah you know in in sort of my mid-20s and where it was like not like just a fun party night, you know?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think in those moments, I sort of became more of like, took the role of like this sort of narc, I guess, like I was, you know? And then as their addictions progressed, I very much was like the one who People didn't tell things to, you know, which I was kind of OK with because in the moment I felt like I'm doing the right thing. I'm being responsible.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
But I would always get the feedback of like, you're not an addict. You don't understand, which I tried to take on a lot. But I think the way I felt was. If I don't do everything in my power to drag you out of there and do all these things and put you here, then I'm not going to be able to live with myself. So I have to.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And so I think a lot of my life and my 20s were spent resisting what was and enforcing things. And I kind of didn't understand the point of it. I was like, why am I in this life where everyone around me is just like, trying to take themselves out, essentially. And there's nothing I can do. Like, what is the lesson in that for me, you know? Which I still haven't figured out, but... Damn it.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I thought you were about to tell us. But what I do know is that I was forced to surrender because they died, you know? And I felt like I was... holding on for dear life or waiting to get punched in the face and doing everything I could to not have this thing happen. And then it happened twice, you know? And so the only thing I know is that by the time my mom was about to pass away in the hospital,
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I was really surrendered in that moment in a way that felt really liberating. And I truly felt like I was, you know, there's a moment where she was in the hospital and I didn't know if she was going to make it and I was on an airplane. And I kind of in my mind was saying, like, you know, do whatever you want to do. You can go if you need to go, kind of a thing.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
there was no part of me that was like, come on, you know, hold on, just hold on till I land, you know? And that was a big deal for me for, for how resistant I had been for so much of my, my life with these things. But it could be that, that I was, I don't know, had so much of that sort of lesson that I did get to a place where I did feel surrender in a pretty sort of
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And that's another thing I really saw clearly when writing the book and also having my own child. She totally, and my father too, my father, his dad left when he was two and he kind of left the house early and didn't have a really nurturing home. They both shared that experience.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And both of them were incredibly loving to the point where my brother and I would often talk about how lucky we were as adults. And so I don't know where that came from. You know, I don't know if she was born with that.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
instinct but it was so strong that I find myself going I hope that I can make my child feel like half as loved as my mother made us feel you know which considering where you know her her sort of story it is pretty incredible talk to us about the loss of Ben and what that did for you and her
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So I think the hardest thing about writing a book about real people is that you can't describe a full human on the page. And I would spend just hours going back and talking to my husband and my dad going like, how do I describe Ben? How do I describe my mom? And to me, and this is probably a very human experience, like they felt so unique and so special.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So I think there's like words that I use to describe him, you know, like he was so kind and sweet and sensitive and funny and hilarious and all of these things. But he, to me, just felt like, just like an angel kind of, you know, and so special. You know, one of the things that
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I really felt, and this could also be a shared experience with many people, is I really felt this feeling of like there was a mistake made. He shouldn't be gone. And I think that that just speaks to the closeness probably and the relationship and the uniqueness of like all individuals. But it's hard to describe him. He was incredible, like a really, you know how a lot of boys are very sort of
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
like wild and rambunctious when they're young. He was very soft and like sensitive and sweet and had this beautiful curly blonde hair and was kind of wild and loved to be in the garden and plant and very thoughtful. And that sort of was his essence, I think. When I think of him and when I went to speak at his service, or I didn't speak, I wrote something, he really kept the essence of
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
him as a child through his life, which is also, was also a really beautiful thing.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yeah. I think. Kept that fire. Totally. And so he was just the funny, like very funny and quick, smart, intelligent, kind of one of those people who would retain all information. If you're, if you were like, what is that kind of tree? He'd be like, Oh, that's a, you know, this thing, or, or, you know, where does this tree, I don't know. He was just new.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
He had my dad's sort of mind in that way, just really intellectual kind of brain. And he was really special. And we were really close. He felt to me like he was my twin or something. We felt very connected spiritually. And there was nobody in the world who... would have been like, oh, Ben, he's kind of a bad guy. Like he was just like everybody had a good experience with him.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And one of the most important things that I like to say with regards to suicide is not somebody that you would ever imagine in terms of stigma would take their life or would die by suicide. Even for me, which was probably the hardest thing, experience was the shock of it, you know?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So her addiction was actually before my brother died. Okay.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yeah. So her addiction was when my sisters were younger. And she went to rehab. Her addiction got like very out of control.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So she was 40 prior to this. She drank alcohol. She probably would get too drunk sometimes, but she would have never considered herself an addict. And I don't think anyone around would have been like, oh, she's got a drinking problem. It was just like the environment was very party. And I don't think she would have
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
ever said I need to stop drinking or anything but she certainly drank she barely took medication wouldn't really take Advil Tylenol try to be very healthy but what she did always say which is interesting in hindsight is she would always say like oh if I was ever to try heroin or if I was to do drugs like they would kill me because I'm like all or nothing type of a person
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And she made these comments and probably because there was a part of her that was considering her fate and her dad's fate and wondering about, you know, I don't think she had like the language for it, but I think she was probably had something in her that felt right.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
connected to his him and his addiction and so she had my sisters and she was 40 years old and she had a c-section and they gave her opiates and she took the opiates for pain and then when they were about two she came to me and I had no idea and said you know I've been taking painkillers And I think I need to go to rehab. And I was like, what? Like I had no idea.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And she said, you know, it was to sleep. Like I couldn't sleep. Like after the babies were born, I tried to take Benadryl and that wasn't working. And then I would take the opiates. And so I was just taking them at night. And that was, I think that was like a year where she would just take it at night to get sleep. And she was very open. And I think probably only told me once she
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
like realized it herself. Like, I don't think she would have hid it from us because she was always telling us everything. So she said, you know, I'm taking these pills and I need to go to rehab. And I found a place in Mexico and they do like a holistic thing. And I just need to get off them. Like my body's addicted, but that's it. And I was like, okay, that makes sense.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I'd had experience with my dad and opiates. And so, yeah, she goes to this place and And then halfway through the treatment, she's like, you know, I got to get back because the kids are starting school. And I think this was actually a really bad time to come here. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, you're here. What are you talking about?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Like, you're not just going to leave because they're starting school. Like, you knew they were starting school. And I think that overall, it's more of a priority that you finish your treatment. And she was like, it's fine. It's really important. They need like stability and they need to get back in school. And we got in a big, it was a big fight actually.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And so she left and then she went home and I went, oh, she doesn't want to stop taking them. And that's when progressively things got much worse. And she decided she was going to move to Nashville and that she was going to find time to go back to the rehab. you know, she was taking more and more pills. She ended up getting up to 80, 80 pills a day. And then she went back to the rehab.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
She went home. She had like a week. And then I called her and I could just tell it was just felt like this thing that was started to spiral. And I was like, have you taken anything? And she was like, no. And then she like went to a dentist office or something and had like a dental work done and then needed to take some She's like, I have to take I have to take painkillers. And I know that trick.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I was like, OK, I see what's happening here. And then it just spiraled. It was like the opiates were, you know, so high up the amount. And then she like. Went out one night in Nashville and somebody gave her cocaine. And then it became cocaine, opiates, alcohol, and got so bad to the point where she ended up in heart failure in Cedars-Sinai in LA. So she basically was just going crazy.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And me and my brother got her to, which is in the book, like get on a bus to come to LA because she wouldn't fly because she couldn't do cocaine on the airplane. So we, my brother took her on a bus and brought her to Cedars. And then she was in the ICU for about a week. And then the amazing thing is, and it was a slow sort of like, you know, because she ended up in Cedars and,
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
She was so honest that she told the people working there, you know, I have a drug problem. And she's not realizing that they would call a social worker. And she was kind of saying, I need to get help. But I, you know, but she just told them and they took my sisters away from her. And they were like three then? How old were they? Gosh. Gosh. It would have been five or six, maybe five or six.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So actually, the courts just gave them to my grandma. Yeah. And then once she completed rehab and she had to send her urine tests and then whatever, the social workers basically said, well, you need a court-appointed monitor with you if you're going to have the kids back in the house. So I was the court-appointed monitor. Oh, Riley. And so I kind of had to live with them. until she finished.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
It was like a year or something, year or two that she had to have that. And that was hard. That was really hard because she also didn't want to be sober, like still, but she did, you know, for her kids and she didn't relapse at all. She never relapsed. And this was like 2017, I think. And there were other issues like
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
When she would go to the doctors who were giving her the post-rehab drugs, she would convince them to give her like way too many. But other than that, she never took narcotics again until, which is actually interesting. So when my brother died, my first thought was like, she's going to relapse. She's going to obviously, like how could she not? And like OD or something.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So she didn't do that. And that was actually something I was like so to the day she died proud of her for. And I thought was really important because she'd always be like two years sober, three years sober. And I think she always felt like I wasn't proud of her or like I wasn't giving her enough praise for her sobriety. But really, I was just frightened. Like I was scared to say anything.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Like, yay, you know, you're whatever. And I feel like I should have. I think I withheld the excitement because I was nervous that she'd relapse. Of course you were.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yeah. And so I think that the fact that my brother died and she never relapsed was actually so incredible. And before she died, coincidentally, she had had like a infection. She'd had a surgery and she had to take Oxy, I think.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I was like, oh, God, like, here we go. This is going to be a whole thing. I didn't think she was going to like go full crazy, but I thought she was going to definitely drag it out. But I kind of was like, I'm not going to ask because I guess I learned my lesson. I'm just going to let her do what she's going to do. And this was probably in like November and she died in January.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I knew she was taking them. Or maybe it was sort of December time. I knew she was taking them and whatever. She had to take them. Like I talked to the doctor. But when she died, my first thought was she's OD'd. And my housekeeper was like... I don't know what's happened. There's her pills here or something. I can't remember the exact conversation. And I was like, oh, she's mixed something.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
She's OD'd on accident. Something's had a reaction. And she had told me a few weeks earlier, I'm taking it, but I'm being responsible. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to not get involved here. And when she died and the autopsy report came back, it said like therapeutic amounts of whatever was in her blood.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I just felt so proud of her because she was just taking exactly what was prescribed for the time it was prescribed. And so I think it's really important to share that because I don't think she was going to relapse, you know, had she stayed alive. And I think that actually a part of her when my brother died made her want to stay sober because he would have wanted that.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yeah. I think it did in a way. And that kind of can feel heartbreaking. But also there's a part of me that's like, who's to say that it's a precipice of something that's here on this planet? That's right. You know?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So I kind of choose to feel more hopeful about that, I guess, because I think that like something I've really haven't liked in my grief experience is the sort of feeling around death that it's like a failure.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
which is so weird because we all die and it's like at all ages at any time it's just part of life and there's this feeling around it that's like oh no i'm so this horrible thing happened to you but but it's kind of ridiculous you know yeah who's to say that on the other side of it is not 20 million times better than this Exactly.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
So I think that like the sort of view around death and my view on dying when touring this book and people are like, oh, I'm so sorry. Of course, it was tragic and like extremely painful and traumatized the shit out of me. But I also don't instinctually in my heart believe that the human beliefs around death and the fear are totally valid.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
The sort of place she was right before she died was like she would go on hikes and was like, I'm going to start a grief podcast. And so she was actually trying to like live for my sisters and my brother in honor of him. And she was really trying, you know. Yeah. Though she was totally heartbroken. I think that
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
those things are happening, you know, and the book did come out and I think that it did have the effect that she wanted it to in terms of just reaching people and people relating to it on a human level. Cause I think a lot of her life, she spent not feeling like a human in a way.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Right. And then when you really think about like what life is about and what a successful life is, I think to me, it's ability to give and receive love. And I feel like she was exceptional at one of those things.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Right. Oh my gosh. Well, I think it's, I think that like the obvious things are like, well, the spiritual problem is trauma, not enough love, whatever. But I also saw someone who really didn't understand what they were doing here and on a more profound level, you know, didn't understand her purpose and desire to, for someone to say like, Hey, this is what life is.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Like, which is a funny thing that it's looked at as this like esoteric conversation, but it's like kind of nuts that were just plopped here with no context. And so I like to be confused feels like, Legit. Right. Seems like it should be like a baseline 101. Right.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
This is what we're here to talk about. Yeah. So I think that there's just like... a lack of understanding and like purpose with her and wanting definitely love. Like love was a big one for her. I don't think she could receive love very well. Yeah. I don't know.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
You know, I spent like my whole, my hours of my day that are, or when I'm going to bed and I should be sleeping, like wondering, why did this happen? And what does this mean? And what is addiction? Like, what is it? Trauma? Is it, is it genetic? I have no idea. I don't have any answers in that respect. I just saw somebody who had some kind of hole they wanted to fill.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yes. She was very, had real abandonment stuff. She would very quickly drop friends if she felt that they were going to drop her first kind of a thing. But then also you reminded me like she was in pain, you know, and she didn't want to feel pain, like God forbid, you know, it's really difficult to live with that much pain, grief. for a long time.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think she just hit a point where it felt nice to escape that.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yes. I can't recite it, but it basically says that wanting people know that the Beauty Ben that was my mother.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Thank you so much. Thank you, Riley.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
It really is. It is. Well, I really appreciate you having me. I mean, I listen to your podcast, so that's very cool. I do a lot of podcasts and I don't listen to all of them, so I don't know what I'm doing. And I really love your podcast, so I'm really happy to be here. So thank you for having me. Oh my gosh.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I feel like I have like two lives kind of.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Tell me, what do you want to talk about? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't have anything particular that I want to talk about, but I'm happy to talk about anything, literally. So whatever you feel is appropriate.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Well, my name is Riley Keough and I am the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley. That's the sort of the easy, the cliff notes. Tell us about your mama. My mother was Lisa Marie Presley, and she was a wonderfully unique and fierce and incredibly strong woman and mother who had a really... unique life, obviously.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And, you know, I think a lot of human experiences within this unique setting, but she kind of, you know, obviously lost her father and grew up in a very intense situation of being Elvis Presley's only child.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Well, it's something I think about a lot. I'm kind of somebody who's obsessed with like where I came from and what happened to my parents and their parents. And so I know everything, you know, and I always have. And that kind of had nothing to do with Elvis. It was more just like on both sides of my family, I was always very curious.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think I always had an instinct of like about sort of carrying that because when I would find these things out about my family members I'd never met, there was an emotional connection to them, you know? And so on that side of the family, there's a long history of poverty for one. My family came from many generations of really kind of extreme poverty and addiction, alcohol abuse, drug abuse.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And she, my mother, you know, also suffered from addiction and And lost her father at nine. And so I think the grief of that really dictated a lot of her life and the way that she wasn't. really able to process it, I think, because of the nature of the grief and how it was a sort of shared grief and it was a global grief.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And so I don't think there was particularly a lot of room for her to have her own grief. So that was really unique. But outside of the Elvis stuff, there is a lot of generational trauma, you know?
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yeah. His mother was an alcoholic and it was the South and in the times where, you know, the way he sort of grew up, like they didn't really have money. And that was kind of a huge, if I could imagine coming from that kind of a lifestyle of
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
scarcity in that way and then turning into sort of like the most famous person in the world and the sort of the money and the the stuff and all of that I would imagine that that would be also kind of hard to process which I think you see all the time but I think that his particular situation was really polarizing because of sort of where he and his family had come from mm-hmm
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Yes, totally. The whole like hillbilly family.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
Her dad died, and then literally what happened was she had to live full-time with her mom in California. And I think that she had lived at Graceland in the house with Elvis and also with her mother. But for her, Graceland and the time with her father was really represented there. like a freedom and also unconditional love.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And the connection that she had with him was, I think, one of the most important connections of her life. And I think that the loss of him, it's not to say that other people didn't love her, but she always would say, I don't remember anybody else other than my dad until he died. And so she was grieving, but she was grieving with like the country and the world.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And I think, you know, she says in the book that she was sitting on the stairs and watching people come in and fainting and being carried away by ambulances. And so I think she was very protective of her grief because it felt like something she
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The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
could have ownership or like it was I think people would ask her about him a lot and as she grew older she didn't really ever talk about his death and she didn't talk about it publicly surely I think there were two sides of it I think that on one side she didn't properly go through the process of grief as a normal person might because it felt like this thing she was holding on to for herself
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
And on the other side, I think that there was comfort in the sort of like collective grief she felt for her father, which lasted her whole life. And when she would go home to Graceland or, you know, there's something called Elvis Week, which is like an event where fans come to the house.
We Can Do Hard Things
The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough
I would see that she would be really comforted by the fans who would hug her and hold her and the sadness that they had, that they shared over the loss of her father. So I think that it was sort of a twofold thing.