Her world fell apart when son Ben died

Tragedy that haunted Elvis's daughter

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

IN the last two years of her life, Lisa Marie Presley lived in the "unrelenting grip" of grief, tortured by the loss of her son Benjamin, who is buried beside his grandfather Elvis at Graceland.

At the tragically young age of 27, Benjamin, Lisa Marie's son from her marriage to musician Danny Keough, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 12, 2020, at his home in Calabasas, California.

In her final social media post before her death on Thursday, aged 54, Lisa Marie spoke of living with her loss.

In a post to mark National Grief Awareness Day in August, Lisa Marie wrote: "Since I have been living in the horrific reality of its unrelenting grip since my son's death two years ago, I thought I would share a few things to be aware of in regard to grief.

"Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life. You do not get over it, you do not 'move on', period."

BLAME

Her son, a singer like his grandfather, had struggled with depression, drink and drugs, but his mother blamed herself for his death.

She wrote: "I already battle with and beat myself up tirelessly and chronically, blaming myself every single day."

Last night an insider told the Mirror: "No one quite grasped just how Ben's death truly affected Lisa.

"When she looked at her son, she saw her father in so many ways. She never recovered. It broke her soul, and it broke her heart.

Like her father, Elvis, who was just 42 when he died in 1977, Lisa Marie's life was blighted by drug abuse.