WARNING: This article includes mentions of addiction and substance abuse
The late Lisa Marie Presley has posthumously revealed in her upcoming memoir that she had developed an addiction to opioids after giving birth.
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In an excerpt of the upcoming memoir – titled Here To The Great Unknown – shared with PEOPLE, a portion of the book sees Presley writing about being addicted to subscription painkillers following the births of her twins Harper and Finley Lockwood in 2008.
“For a couple of years it was recreational and then it wasn’t. It was an absolute matter of addiction, withdrawal in the big leagues. You may read this and wonder how, after losing people close to me, I also fell prey to opioids I was recovering after the birth of my daughters, [Harper] 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.”
Presley continued: “Even in recent years, I have seen too many people I loved struggle with addiction and die tragically from this epidemic. It is time for us to say goodbye to shame about addiction. We have to stop blaming and judging ourselves and the people around us… That starts with sharing our stories… As I write this, I think of my four children, who gave me the purpose to heal.”
The memoir, which is due for release on October 8, was partially written by Presley and later finished by her daughter Riley Keough. You can pre-order your copy here.
Presley died at the age of 54 after an emergency admission to the hospital in January 2023.
While her death was initially thought to be caused by cardiac arrest, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office later confirmed that Presley died from a “sequelae of a small bowel obstruction”, or an intestinal obstruction that constricted blood supply to her digestive tract.
Keough was asked by her mother to help write the book – titled Here To The Great Unknown – and following her death in 2023, Keough finished telling her mother’s story after listening to tapes she had recorded during the writing process.
Presley was born in 1968 as the only child to her parents Elvis and Priscilla, and was the sole heir to the Graceland estate, which she inherited in 1980.
She went on to pursue her own music career, within which she released three studio albums, namely ‘To Whom It May Concern’ in 2003, ‘Now What’ in 2004, and ‘Storm And Grace’ in 2012. The former two albums peaked in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album charts.
Meanwhile, Keough also recently announced a book tour in support of From Here To The Great Unknown, which will see her pay tribute to Lisa Marie Presley. For the tour, she will also be joined by currently unnamed special guests at each of the tour stops.
The tour will take place across six dates in October, with stops in New York, Graceland, St. Louis, Nashville, London and Los Angeles. You can get tickets to the book tour here.
