Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, opened up to Oprah Winfrey about a deeply personal family memory—her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, instinctively sensed something was wrong the morning Elvis died.
Winfrey traveled to Graceland for Keough's first major interview since her mother died last year, for "An Oprah Special: The Presleys - Elvis, Lisa Marie, and Riley" which will premiere on CBS on Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and will be available for streaming on Paramount+.
In an exclusive clip previewed on "CBS Mornings Plus" on Monday, Keough shared that Lisa Marie, who was just 9 years old when "The King" died, had a feeling something wasn't right with her father. On the morning of Aug. 16, 1977, she says her mom woke up and knew that something was off.
"She said goodnight to him, and I think she knew, saying goodnight, that she had some kind of sense. I think she had a sense many times that he wasn't OK. You know, she would tell me that sometimes she would find him in his bathroom looking kind of out of it or holding onto the railing to stand up straight. And she also wrote these letters when she was little, saying, 'I hope my daddy doesn't die.' So there was some kind of sense there," said Keough.
Keough said her mother had a close bond with Elvis, spending a lot of private time with him upstairs in their Graceland home.
"I think she got a lot of intimate time up there with him. No one else was up there," she said.
Before she died in 2023, Lisa Marie recorded hours of personal stories, which are now part of the memoir "From Here to the Great Unknown," which Riley finished co-writing.
In the upcoming special, produced by Harpo Productions, Keough, who is an Emmy-nominated actress and director, also talks about her own journey of carrying forward the Presley legacy.
"An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley," airs Tuesday, Oct. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. It will stream live on Paramount+ for "Paramount+ with Showtime" subscribers, and will be available on-demand the next day for "Paramount+ Essentials" subscribers."
Analisa Novak is a content producer for CBS News and the Emmy Award-winning "CBS Mornings." Based in Chicago, she specializes in covering live events and exclusive interviews for the show. Analisa is a United States Army veteran and holds a master's degree in strategic communication from Quinnipiac University.