Lisa Marie Presley was born into the world's most famous family. Her life was full of tragedy.

On Friday, January 13, 2023, Lisa Marie Presley passed away. She was 54.

Her mother, Priscilla Presley, confirmed the news to People at the time, saying: "It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us."

"She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known. We ask for privacy as we try to deal with this profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers. At this time there will be no further comment."

Earlier in the day, it had been reported that the 54-year-old singer had been hospitalised after a cardiac arrest. According to People, paramedics arrived at her California home and were reportedly able to regain a pulse before transferring her to hospital. She later died due to a small bowel obstruction, caused by weight-loss surgery she'd undergone several years prior, which prompted her to go into cardiac arrest.

Just two days earlier, Lisa Marie had attended the Golden Globes with Priscilla and Elvis star Austin Butler.

Now, just days ahead of the release of her memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir, daughter and co-author Riley Keough has shared what she believes to be the reason for her mother's death.

Riley Keough and her mum, Lisa Marie Presley, in 2017. Image: Getty.

"My mum physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart," the 35-year-old told People magazine, referring to the death of her brother Ben at age 27 in 2020.

"My mum tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters [twins Finley and Harper, 15] after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in."

Lisa Marie Presley's life.

Born in 1968, Lisa Marie Presley was the only daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

After her parents divorced, Lisa Marie lived with her mother and spent periods of time at Graceland with her dad. When Elvis passed away in 1977, she was just nine years old.

Elvis and Priscilla Presley with their daughter, Lisa Marie, in 1968. Image: Getty.

In 1993, on her 25th birthday, Lisa Marie became the sole heir to her father's estate, which had grown to an estimated $100 million. (In 2018 court documents, Lisa Marie alleged that her former business manager had whittled her large fortune down to just US$14,000.)

Over the course of her life, Lisa Marie married four times and had four children.

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She had two children with Chicago-born musician Danny Keough, whom she married in 1988: daughter Riley, an actress and model, and son Benjamin.

The couple later divorced in 1994.

"I had been really sheltered," Lisa Marie told Marie Claire in 2007. "I got married the first time very, very young and the marriage I was in, there was so much resentment about who I was, because I had more than he did, and it became a power struggle."

Twenty days after her divorce from Keough, Lisa Marie married singer Michael Jackson.

When the couple’s relationship went public, with Jackson kissing Lisa Marie on stage at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, the pair’s union was dubbed by many as "The Marriage of the Century".

Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley in 1994. Image: Getty.

"I am very much in love with Michael, I dedicate my life to being his wife," Lisa Marie said in a statement confirming their marriage.

"I understand and support him. We both look forward to raising a family and living happy, healthy lives together. We hope friends and fans will understand and respect our privacy."

Shortly into their marriage, child molestation accusations against Jackson became public.

"I believed he didn't do anything wrong, and that he was wrongly accused and, yes, I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it," she later said.

After two years of marriage, Lisa Marie filed for divorce in early 1996, citing irreconcilable differences. It was later claimed that Lisa Marie and her children "rarely" stayed in the same house as Jackson during their marriage.

When the singer died in June 2009, Lisa Marie wrote that she wanted to "save" Jackson amid his struggles with substance abuse.

"Our relationship was not 'a sham'... I wanted to 'save him,'" she wrote.

"I wanted to save him from the inevitable, which is what has just happened. His family and his loved ones also wanted to save him from this as well but didn’t know how and this was 14 years ago. We all worried that this would be the outcome then."

In August 2002, Lisa Marie married actor Nicolas Cage, who she met at a party. In November that same year, the actor filed for divorce.

"I'm so sad about this, but we shouldn't have been married in the first place," Lisa Marie said in a statement at the time.

Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley. Image: Getty.

She later married for a fourth time, in 2006, to Michael Lockwood, her music producer, until the pair filed for divorce in 2016.

During their marriage, in October 2008, Lisa Marie gave birth to fraternal twin girls, Harper Vivienne Ann and Finley Aaron Love.

Riley Keough and Lisa Marie Presley with her twin daughters in 2017. Image: Getty.

In the foreword of Harry Nelson's 2019 book The United States of Opioids: A Prescription for Liberating a Nation in Pain, Lisa Marie shared how she battled drug addiction.

"You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids," she wrote.

"I was recovering after the birth of my daughters, Vivienne and Finley, when a doctor prescribed me opioids for pain. It only took a short-term prescription of opioids in the hospital for me to feel the need to keep taking them."

She said she was "grateful to be alive today... and to have four beautiful children who have given me a sense of purpose that has carried me through dark times."

In April 2020, Lisa Marie's only son, Benjamin, died by suicide at 27.

Lisa Marie and Benjamin. Image: Instagram.

In a statement provided to media, a representative for Lisa Marie said she was "beyond devastated" over her son's sudden death.

"She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley," the statement read.

"She adored that boy. He was the love of her life."

On National Grief Awareness Day in August, Lisa Marie wrote an essay for People about her experience with grief.

"Death is part of life whether we like it or not — and so is grieving. There is so much to learn and understand on the subject, but here's what I know so far: One is that grief does not stop or go away in any sense, a year, or years after the loss," she wrote. "Grief is something you will have to carry with you for the rest of your life, in spite of what certain people or our culture wants us to believe. You do not 'get over it,' you do not 'move on,' period."

She wrote that it was "a real choice to keep going" after losing her son.

"I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind. He absolutely adored them and they him," she wrote.

On January 13, 2023, Lisa Marie passed away, aged 54, due to a small bowel obstruction. This condition was linked to complications from a previous bariatric surgery. Ten days later, on Monday, January 23, hundreds of mourners gathered at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee in a memorial service. The singer was buried alongside the grave of her son, Benjamin.

Lisa Marie is survived by her mother, Priscilla, and her three daughters, Riley, Vivian and Finley.

Feature Image: Getty.

This article was originally published in January 2023, and has since been updated.