Priscilla Presley says the death of her daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was the “second saddest” day of her life.
“It was the second saddest day of my life, other than losing Elvis [Presley],” Priscilla, 80, told People on Wednesday ahead of the release of her memoir “Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis.”
“It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that Lisa was gone,” she added.
Elvis died of a heart attack in August 1977 at the age of 42. His only child, Lisa Marie, whom he shared with ex-wife Priscilla, died in January 2023 from a small bowel obstruction that developed after a bariatric surgery she’d had years prior. She was 54.
After Lisa Marie’s ex-husband Danny Keough found her unresponsive at her home in Los Angeles, he called Priscilla to tell her to meet them at the hospital.
“We were there all day long. Lisa really wasn’t breathing, so she was on the ventilator,” Priscilla told People, adding that they spent hours “waiting, hoping and praying” for a miracle.
But that miracle didn’t come. “The doctor came in and said, ‘Priscilla, I’m so sorry, she’s gone,’” she recalled. “We just couldn’t believe it — didn’t want to believe it. It was hard on all of us; it still is.”
Priscilla has had a hard life. She’s helped her 38-year-old son, Navarone Garibaldi, whom she shares with ex-boyfriend Marco Garibaldi, get clean from drug addiction. According to Priscilla, he is now sober and in a “good place.”
The matriarch also lost a grandson to suicide; Lisa Marie and Keough’s son, Benjamin Keough, died in July 2020 at the age of 27 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“It hasn’t been easy at all,” Priscilla admitted. “But you have to find strength.”
People went on to publish an excerpt from her book that details the excruciating moment she took her daughter off life support.
“She was hooked to a machine that was breathing for her, and she had a heartbeat. There was little brain activity,” Priscilla writes, noting that a nurse eventually suggested she leave the hospital room to go get something to eat and drink.
“Then we heard an emergency alarm from Lisa’s room. It was a code blue; Lisa’s heart had stopped,” Priscilla pens.
“The next thing I remember is the doctor talking to me. He asked me what I wanted him to do. They had restarted Lisa’s heart, but there was no guarantee it would keep beating. I asked the doctor, ‘What kind of life will she have if we keep her on that machine?’ He looked at me with compassion and shook his head. ‘No quality of life at all.’”
Priscilla says she thought about her “wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life” and made the painful call.
“I said what I had to. ‘Take her off the machine, Doctor.’ My voice was barely above a whisper.”
“Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis” is out Sept. 23.