Best Of: Pharrell Williams / Lisa Marie Presley's Memoir
48:39 Share

From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Tanya Mosley with Fresh Air Weekend. Today,

Today, Grammy-winning producer, singer, songwriter, and rapper Pharrell Williams on his life told through Legos in his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece. The film traces Pharrell's life in Virginia Beach, fueled by the creativity and music around him, and his collaborations with artists like Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, and Beyonce. It also explores his journey with synesthesia, a condition that causes him to see color when he hears music.

We'll also hear from Riley Keough, Elvis's granddaughter and Lisa Marie Presley's daughter. She talks with me about the memoir she co-authored with her late mother, who before her unexpected death, chronicled her childhood, her marriage to Michael Jackson, and memories of her father Elvis. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.

This message comes from AppleCard. If you love iPhone, you'll love AppleCard. It comes with the privacy and security you expect from Apple. Plus, you earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a high-yield savings account through AppleCard. A

Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app. Subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners. Subject to eligibility. Apple Card and savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch, member FDIC. Terms and more at applecard.com. Support for NPR and the following message come from Fisher Investments. SVP Judy Abrams shares how clients' retirement concerns shift throughout different phases of their life and how Fisher works to support them every step of the way.

Retirement is life continuing. So we're helping people to always think about how much money do I need? For some clients, the things that they want to do are

close to home and volunteering. Or maybe they're going to be doing more traveling. Life is fluid, whatever it is they want to do with their time. Our goal is to construct a plan that's going to serve them well over time. Fisher Investments is much more than just a money manager. We're not only managing the portfolio, but we're helping clients with other important things that people worry about when they're falling asleep at night.

Learn more at FisherInvestments.com. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. Go ahead on the set. Hey, how you doing, man? You know what would be cool is if we told my story with Lego pieces. Seriously? Yes. Lego. Just be open.

Yes, Lego. That's a scene from Piece by Piece, a new biopic about the life of music producer and multi-hyphenate artist Pharrell.

But to call it a biopic almost feels too simple. Like so much of Pharrell's music, the film is a mix of genres. It's a musical, it's a documentary, and it's a Lego animation all in one. It pieces together Pharrell's life growing up in Virginia Beach and the lows and highs of his ascension within the music and fashion industry. And did I mention the music?

The film gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of some of Pharrell's top hits that he's produced both for himself and a long list of performers. ♪

I just want to love you. I just want to love you.

You know you love me. And with all this cash. More money, more problems. You'll forget your man. Don't be so quick to. I'm gonna fuck you. Please hit me. You don't have to admit you. Don't. Just let me fuck you. To the break of day. On this night. All the girls. Don't be. I ain't no hollaback. I ain't no hollaback. All my life. I has to fight.

Oh, it's my life, ah. Hard times like, yeah. Bad shits like, yeah. Nazareth, I'm f***ed up, homie, you f***ed up. But if God got us, then we gon' be alright. We gon' be alright. We gon' be, do you feel me? We gon' be alright.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville directed piece by piece with interviews from music industry heavy hitters like Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Kendrick Lamar, and his partner from the Neptunes, Chad Hugo. There's even a cameo of the late astronomer Carl Sagan. And everyone, of course, is a Lego. Pharrell Williams, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. Your voice is amazing. Thank you.

The film is so cinematic, and I never thought I'd say that about a Lego film, but it is cinematic. Why Lego? Oh, because when I was a child, you know, my fondest memories of, like, having toys and my earliest memories were the Lego sets that, like, my parents would get me when I was really, really, really young. The idea that you get to, like, escape when you don't even know that you're escaping because you're just literally ideating and imagining things.

in real time as you build with these pieces. And whether you actually really build what the set is all about or you're just putting pieces together, like what it does for the young mind and how it sets it free, it's just magical. And at the same time, I really also wanted, like, if I'm going to tell my story, which I was never really interested in doing, if I'm going to do it, I want to do it in a way that, like, my children, which were

We have our oldest and then our triplets had just been born. So four young kids. And how old were they at the time of this idea? Because this was five, six years ago, right? Yeah. At that point, our oldest may have been eight or nine. And then our babies had just been born. And so they're now seven. And my whole thing was like, I didn't know how long the animation process was going to take.

But I definitely wanted them to understand the story as their dad would tell it. I wanted them to be able to get it. You know, if you tell it through the guise of Lego, it's like, okay, they understand. It's like a world. Right. You know? The process, though, because like you said, it took five years because of the animation process to turn Lego.

What was your life into a Lego movie? And one of the things that Neville did in this film was visualize your ability to hear colors and see sound. You talk about this often, synesthesia, which is a neurological mixing of senses. In the film, what's so cool is that

When you make music, the colors correspond with it. And then you give the piece of music as a musical note to the artist and it's a beautiful color. You see seven colors, right, that denote notes. Can you explain that to us? If you take it back to when you were born, all of your nerve endings, sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling,

They were all connected. And then when you turn one, those nerve endings, they prune. And sometimes some of them stay connected. And the ones that stay connected give you synesthesia. And when they're connected, they send ghost images and ghost information to the different parts of the brain. And so...

You'll end up hearing a color or seeing a sound. Yes. Right. But there's all kinds. Yep. And when you go and do the research, you realize a lot of like, you know, there are there are graphemic synesthetes, too. And those are the people who like can recite, you know, 26 digit numbers.

Because they see the two as slightly tilted and they see the four as in burgundy. And so it gives them this information and it's great for them. And what's amazing is a lot of musicians do. Tons of them. Have you worked with any of them? Because I was reading that...

Stevie Wonder might even have a form of synesthesia. And that makes sense because so much of his music he is describing. He is describing color. There is just like a really beautiful sense of that within the music. What I find fascinating is like, man, if he's never seen red before, then how does he know what red is? Right. How do we know that he's not seeing orange? Yep.

But he thinks it's red and there's no way to really verify that. But he is seeing red. I mean, he's a genius man. I don't know. I was just saying, you can go down a rabbit hole with synesthesia. Have you and an artist ever vibed over that? Yeah, because we all see different things. It utilizes the ROYGBIV, but it's not based on the ROYGBIV's arrangement. What do you mean?

Meaning, you know, certain people hear chords and they don't necessarily picture the same colors. Everybody is very unique. I want to play a song just to give us like a better understanding of how your process works. So I chose Milkshake by...

Which I heard in a commercial recently. I mean, we're here. Time has really gone by, right? The milkshake is in a commercial. But Milkshake was a 2003 song performed by Khalees and written and produced by you and Chad Hugo as the Neptunes. Let's listen to a little. That was Khalees performing Milkshake, written and produced by my guest today, Pharrell. Okay, what does Milkshake look like to you, Pharrell? It is like...

The shapes are hard for me to explain, but it sort of zigzags. And those synth lines are yellow and brown for me. And the yellow goes from bright to mustard, marigold. And in there, it's just very stark brown.

What I've always found really interesting about your music, it feels like environmental. Like I'm hearing like just sounds that I hear in my everyday life. And that one in particular, like there are the bells and like buzzing sounds and things like that. Yeah. That song came from a trip that I went to in Brazil and I just like lost my mind. I didn't.

I've never seen so many beautiful women all in, they were just everywhere. And forgive the objectification when I say that. Yeah. But that was the impression that it made on my mind at that time. I don't know, 20 years ago. Right, right. I was, you know, I was a kid. Really, you're just like, whoa, I never thought.

seen anything like that where am i and if you could put that energy and feeling if that could be sort of transmutated if you will into a song yeah that was the attempt one of the things that the film does is give us a grounding of you as a young person coming into yourself and um

So synesthesia is a condition that you don't know any other way because that's how you've always been. But when did you realize that others may not see the world the way that you do? Oh, when you talk about it in a conversation and they kind of be like, what? What'd you say? What colors?

Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest today is Pharrell. We're talking about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

Fisher Investments is much more than just a money manager. We have an extensive financial planning department, and that's where we help clients with questions like, is my will or trust up to date? When would be the best time for me to trigger my social security?

I have a spouse. They also have Social Security. Does it make a difference whose we trigger first? Could you review these insurance policies that I have? We're not only managing the portfolio, but we're helping clients with other important things that people worry about when they're falling asleep at night. Learn more at FisherInvestments.com. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Bluehost. Try Bluehost Cloud, the hosting plan made for WordPress creators by WordPress experts. With 100% uptime, fast load times, and 24-7 support, your sites can handle high traffic spikes. Visit bluehost.com.

This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley, and today my guest is multi-hyphenate artist and music producer Pharrell. We're talking about his new animated biopic, Piece by Piece, which is about his life growing up in Virginia Beach and his career in the music industry, creating hits like Drop It Like It's Hot, Get Lucky, and the phenomenon that was happy. The film is done entirely using Lego animation.

I want to talk with you a little bit about working with artists because there's this story of you and Snoop Dogg working together that's told in the film. And you all collaborated on the 2004 hit, Drop It Like It's Hot. Let's listen. ♪♪♪

I've got the rollie on my chest.

♪♪ ♪♪

That's Snoop Dogg's Drop It Like It's Hot, which was produced by my guest today, Pharrell. And Pharrell, Snoop Dogg said in the movie that, I want to get this right, that you were the first to allow us, the public, to see the smile in him.

And I thought that was so tender. And it made me think, are you really responsible for Snoop Dogg becoming America's uncle? Because, you know, after that song, he did become this force that, you know, we now see him beyond like that persona as the hard West Coast rapper. Do you understand what he meant when he says that like you allowed us to see the smile in him through that song? You know, when he says all those really nice things, um,

I'm always just always taken aback by it. And I don't know if I really get what he implies, but I'm honored that he associates me with those types of reflections. Well, what did you see in him for that song? Because that song is light. It does provide like, you know, it's got the groove, but it also has like a lightness to it.

Well, it's interesting that you see Drop It Like It's Hot as like a light, the lightness. And I guess I never really looked at it that way. I mean, at the time, I just knew the traumas was hitting hard and it felt good. I don't know if I had ever really given any kind of emotive analysis of it. But I guess you're right. It's not dark. Like, you're right. That's true. I never saw it that way until you said it. You have this ability to capture the essence of...

of an artist. There's times, though, when artists don't want what you're giving. You said so nicely in the film, I wrote this song for Prince and he didn't want it. It ended up being a hit for you. But what's the story behind that of you writing a song for Prince and he not accepting it? Well, he was different. You know, he had there was you know, he was one of those people that like he's a musical savant. It's not an instrument he couldn't pick up and play.

He's a brilliant writer. He's vocally, he's incredible. He was an incredible performer. And he wrote and produced for so many people. So in his mind is like, you know, it's caveats, buddy. And one of which was like, do you own all your masters? If you don't own your masters, we can't work together. I was like, whoa.

Was he one of the first to say that to you? Had you heard that before? No, I never heard anyone say that before. Then his other thing was he wanted to like sort of talk about religion. And I was like, interesting. And, you know, now I do own all of my master recordings. And I'd be happy to square off in a conversation about the business of religion versus the necessity of faith. At that time, it felt, was it over your head?

No, I just was young and was like, for real. OK, you know, not knowing that he wasn't going to be here that long. You know, what year was this? I wasn't I was incredibly respectful. I mean, he was the GOAT then. He still is. You know what I'm saying? I don't know. This might have been like the early 2000s. The song was frontin, right? Yeah, but that was just the music for it at the time. Yeah.

I was wondering a little bit, I wanted to talk to you for a minute about your singing voice. Like, how did you find your singing voice? Because up until the moment when you decided to become like this solo artist with your own music, you were making beats for other people. And did you always know that you were a falsetto? Like, how did you find that voice? I had a problem with my voice for many, many, many years because that was just it. I didn't feel like I had found my voice.

I always thought that my tone sounded like Mickey Mouse. The next time you listen to Frontin', picture Mickey Mouse. You can't unsee it. Stop. I swear. That's one. Now, that's just my tone. Then there is skill set. Yeah. Not being flat. I definitely didn't use any kind of tuning back then. So I was flat all over the place, sounding like a hot vermin.

Just sounding crazy. And my standard is super high. Remember I told you that's the reason why I didn't want to do a documentary. My standard is how I work with great singers. I work with Beyonce before. I work with Rihanna. I work with like people who really can sing. I work with Shakira. I work with Kim Burrell. Yeah. I work with singers. I work with the Clark sisters. I know what like singing really, really, really is. The craft of singing.

It's a real thing. How did you get over it then if you felt like you sounded like Mickey Mouse? Because there was a part of you that wanted it. Like you wanted to be a solo artist. You wanted to be a star. You wanted to be successful. That was ego when I did Frontin'. I wanted to show that like I was known for like rapping and making beats at the time. And I was like, yeah, I'm going to go do this thing too. It was more of a flex. Well, Pharrell, this has been such a pleasure. And I really thank you for your time. Thank you.

Our guest today is Pharrell Williams. Here's his song, Frontin', from 2003. I've been looking at you all the time. Sexy. Okay, yeah, this is so fair. I don't really care what you're... Don't wanna sound full of myself or rude, but you ain't looking at no other dude cause you love me. I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry.

So you think about a chance. You find yourself trying to do my dance. Maybe cause you love me. So then we tried. We're gonna slow down because you weren't used to have. We touched. We touched. Then we locked eyes. And I knew I wasn't. And I was gonna tear your ass up. I know that I'm carrying on.

Pharrell Williams' new animated biopic is called Piece by Piece. My next guest is Riley Keough, actress, producer, and co-author of the new book From Here to the Great Unknown, which she co-authored with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in 2023 at the age of 54.

A few years before she died, Lisa Marie, the only child of Elvis Presley, decided to write a memoir. This was a big deal because for most of her life, Presley lived in her father's shadow. And for years, she'd tell people she thought her life wasn't interesting enough to fill a book. Well, after years of chronicling on her own, Presley asked her daughter Riley to help her finish what she had documented.

A month later, Presley died, and Riley made the decision to complete what her mother started by finishing the book. It's titled From Here to the Great Unknown, a lyric from the song Where No One Stands Alone, featured on a 2018 compilation album of Lisa Marie singing duets with archival recordings of her father's favorite gospel songs. What a man I am.

We are every day from here to the grave. Take these steps, dancers.

Riley Keough joins me today to talk about her mother's memoir. As the book's co-author, Keough gives the reader a broader scope into the family's intergenerational sorrows in a way that no other account of the Presley family has done.

Keogh is a model, producer, and award-winning actor who has starred in films like Mad Max, Fury Road, Zola, and the miniseries Daisy Jones and the Six. She is the sole owner of Graceland and trustee of her mother Lisa Marie Presley's estate. Riley Keogh, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

This book, Riley, it's mostly your mother's story in her own words, and it bounces back and forth between your mom's perspective and your perspective. And I just want to tell you that it is so beautifully done. Thank you. I appreciate it.

This title, it comes from that stirring gospel song we just heard of your mom singing with a recording of her late father, Elvis. What meaning does that particular lyric, From Here to the Great Unknown, hold for you? We were trying to figure out the title of the book, and me and the publisher would go back and forth with different titles, and he sent over From Here to the Great Unknown, and

And at first I kind of was a little bit resistant to it because my mom was a little resistant to singing that duet. Did she share why? I think she always felt hesitant to do Elvis things. I don't know why. I think she just didn't, you know, she obviously loved her father, but I think that

She was trying to have her own identity, so I think she often would get asked to do duets or cover Elvis songs, and I think that she would kind of buck up against that. But then she ended up recording this song and had a very emotional experience doing it, and she was really happy she did it. And it was very cathartic, and it's a beautiful song. And the lyrics from Here to the Great Unknown, I guess, represented for me like...

Something I think about a lot, which is like, where did she go? Where did they go? Where do people go when they pass away? And it's just something when you experience grief or a lot of grief that I think about a lot or I consider sad.

You lost your mom in 2023. You lost your brother three years prior. And you lived with a mother who held the grief of losing her father all of her life. And as you said, grappled with doing Elvis things, but also lost

really had the task of holding the candle to his legacy, you know, being able, she was the main spokesperson for him. And I keep using the term raw to describe to people the way your mother shared her life in this book is

And I get the sense that we're getting a glimpse of her personality because it feels like she was a straight shooter. She was very matter-of-fact, but she was also really vulnerable. Is that an accurate way to describe her? Definitely. I think that she was very complicated, and it's hard to describe her. There were moments in the book where I was trying to, but it just never seemed effective. And it's because she was very complicated, and she was...

very candid and honest and raw and tough and wild and rebellious, but she also had a side to her that was very sort of childlike and naive as well. And one of the most loving people I've ever met, but also I don't know if she could ever receive love, which was interesting. Your grandfather, Elvis, died when she was nine, right?

It feels like we're transported to her nine-year-old self in the book because I can feel the stars in her eyes as she writes about the way her father doted on her. And I would love for you to read a passage that illustrates this, if you don't mind. Sure. Twenty minutes before my dad was due to walk on stage in Las Vegas, my mom told him I'm leaving, and he still had to go out and perform. I was four when they split up, but I remained so close with my dad.

I knew how much I was adored, how much he loved me. I knew that he knew that I hated, hated, hated leaving him. Hated, hated, hated going to my mother's new home in Los Angeles. Loathed it. He got a house there to be closer to me. When I was in LA, he'd call all hours of the night to talk to me or just to leave a message on my phone. I was taking piano lessons there at one point and

and he would want to hear them, so my mother would put the phone on the piano so he could hear me playing. I would do anything he wanted. I would sing. I would dance. He always wanted me to sing. I didn't love it, but I knew it made him happy, so I did it. He wanted me to learn green sleeves on the piano, so I did. He could have said, chop both your feet off, and I would have done it just to make him happy. Thank you for reading that, Riley.

Your mom goes on to describe how she'd go back and forth between living at Graceland with your dad and extended family and her mother, Priscilla, as she mentioned, in Los Angeles. She doesn't say this, but after her father died, there's this feeling in the way she describes her life, like she's parentless, like kind of unmoored, you know, with this yearning for parental figure. Is that an accurate description? Yeah.

I think that she was so close with her father, like she was a daddy's girl, and he was everything to her, that the loss of him was so great. And I think that dictated the relationship she had with her mother. How would you describe her relationship with Priscilla?

I was very complicated. Priscilla was a very young mother, and obviously my grandmother was living in this world that was totally overwhelming and unusual, and she was having to be Elvis's wife. And I think there was a lot of pressure on her to be perfect and to be the perfect sort of wife and woman that ever lived. You know, I think she really felt that pressure, and she was very young.

And I think that my mom and her were very different. Like, my mother was very wild and unruly and rebellious and radical, kind of. And she was very, you know, well-mannered and perfect and, I don't know, just kind of the opposite of my mom. And so I think they would butt heads often. And my mom was like a very rebellious teenager. Yeah.

I mean, I also think that that had to do with the fact that she was in grief, too. And so I think she was acting out, maybe she was acting out. She was angry at the universe for taking her father away. And I think that everything and everyone was not him.

My guest is Riley Keough. We're talking about the new memoir she co-authored with her late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in 2023 at 54. We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air Weekend.

This message comes from Capital One, offering commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces unique challenges and opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services

all tailored to your short and long-term goals. Backed by the strength and stability of a top 10 commercial bank, their dedicated experts work with you to build lasting success. Explore the possibilities at CapitalOne.com slash commercial. A member FDIC.

This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask? BetterHelp Online Therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self so you can take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash NPR. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley. And today my guest is Riley Keough. She is the co-author of the new book, From Here to the Great Unknown, which she co-authored with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who recorded the details of her life before she died in 2023.

In the book, Presley shares her memories of the first nine years of her life with her dad, Elvis, the tumultuous relationship with her mother, Priscilla, her romances, including her short-lived marriage to Michael Jackson, and her search for her voice and place in the world outside of her father's fame. The book is written with alternating sections between Presley and Keough.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of your mother's life was when her dad died, and she writes about it with such painstaking clarity. She was actually there at Graceland that day in 1977. What did she share about that day? It was something she always felt protective over, that story. I always got the sense that she would never share the details of that day publicly, but then when I got the tapes, I...

I heard that she did want to share, you know, the details of that day. And so she just goes through the whole sequence of events in the book. And she basically came into my grandfather's room and he was in his bathroom and she saw him in there. And then somebody grabbed her and brought her out into her room and the ambulance came. And I think she says she went to smoke a cigarette. She was nine years old. And then she watched him get brought down the stairs, um,

on a gurney, and she kind of says she remembers seeing his shoes or his hand or something like that. And he gets wheeled out of the house, and then a few moments later, his father, Vernon, basically, she hears him yelling and saying, you know, my baby's gone. And she says something like, what'd you say, or something, and I think Vernon said, you know, your daddy's gone. And that was something she did tell us, like the...

that Vernon used or something I remember from growing up. Him saying, you know, your daddy's gone, your daddy's gone. I remember that from being very little.

One of the things she also writes about in that section where she details that day is almost like this out-of-body experience for her, watching others in the days after Elvis's death, all of the fans who came to Graceland and they were grieving so deeply for this man. It seems like it almost pushed her outside of her own grief for a moment because she

There's so much to hold when you have the world grieving for the person that's taking care of you. Yeah, the whole world was grieving her father. And she talks about watching people come through the house and people fainting and having to be carried out and ambulances coming to get people. And so I think she was kind of for the service and all that, like just kind of watching this massive...

ceremony that was like a global experience, kind of. So I think it was a very interesting way to grieve. And I think that it kind of maybe didn't leave her a lot of room for her own grief. How does she process the fandom around Elvis? I mean, she had to hold like other people's really big feelings about him all of her life.

I think she found a lot of comfort in it. I think that because his fans, you know, loved him so dearly, she felt comforted by that. Like it was a shared grief in a way. And I think when she would come home or come to Memphis or go to different ceremonies at Graceland and the fans would hug her or share their grief. It was a shared experience. I actually think she found comfort in it.

Riley, you and your mom, you touch on a lot of the details that people want to know. Her relationship with her dad and mom, her music career, which I want to talk more about, her love life, including her being married to Michael Jackson, which we'll get to later.

And meeting and marrying your dad, who you talk a lot about, Danny Keough, and people actually didn't want your parents to be together. Your mom writes about how your grandma, Priscilla, wanted her to be with someone more established. But I should note that your dad was also hesitant, right? Because he could see all that came with being with Elvis's daughter. What do you think drew them to each other? My dad was just like a bass player from Oregon, from like a small town. Yeah.

who made his way to California by like selling photos of a, you know, a volcano or something crazy. Like I can't remember the story, but he, yeah. And he like hitchhiked his way down and he came from a very small town in Oregon. And I think her, her, the fame and all of that really, he, it's scared him a bit. And I don't think he was interested in that kind of thing. He just, all he cared about was music. Um,

And she was kind of obsessed with him, I think, because he was, I mean, because they were in love. But also, I think she could perceive that he was like one of the few people in her life who didn't have an agenda or want something from her other than her, which wasn't common in her life. Yeah.

And he was, you know, he tried to leave her a few times because I think that he kind of got the sense that, you know, her world would suck him in and he wouldn't really have his own life, essentially. An identity. An identity, mm-hmm. How old were you when your mother left your father for Michael Jackson? I was six. What memories do you have of that time? Well, I remember I was sitting on her lap and...

We were in Florida and she told me she was divorcing my dad. And I just remember sobbing and saying, that means he's not my dad anymore. And she said, no, that's not what that means. Of course he's your father. He's always going to be your father. And I remember that pain like well. But then they were very, you know, they were pretty good about it.

I guess like what's now consciously uncoupling. And he was always around and he lived in our house. And, you know, I mean, my mom left him for Michael. So he was devastated. I think she felt a lot of guilt about that, about leaving my dad. You wrote in the book that you spent more time growing up in Neverland than Graceland, right? That's right. What are some of your most potent memories of staying there?

Mostly playing with my cousins or my in-law cousins, you know, Michael's nephews and nieces, running around kind of wild. Probably similar to Graceland, actually, you know, just kind of running free on the land. And, you know, Neverland was a little more extravagant than Graceland, like in terms of there was a lot more animals and there were rides and things. So as a kid, it was pretty fun for us to run around Graceland.

Did I get this right that you wrote in the book something like you woke up to a giraffe in your... Was that right? Yeah, I always forget if I put that in or took it out. But yes, I woke up to a giraffe. He had animals on the property, but I don't know why on this day the giraffe was right outside the window because typically I think they're in like their areas. But it was a really memorable moment.

What was your relationship with Michael Jackson like? You were afraid when your mom first told you that he might replace your dad. But once you got to know him, how would you describe it? I think my mom says something in the book that people might kind of pass over, which is really kind of indicative of the whole thing, which is that the version of Michael that was in our lives or that she was with was different.

was different to, I think, the version that he presented on TV. And even the way he spoke was different. And probably with Elvis, too. There's the version of Elvis Presley for the world, and then there's the version at home. And I think my experience with Michael was he felt like a human being and spoke differently. I remember the first time I saw him on TV, his register was higher, and that's not how I was used to hearing him. And I remember...

thinking that was interesting. So I think that in my life, he felt like my mom's husband, like a stepfather. There's an entire chapter devoted to Michael, and she makes clear that she loved Michael and that their romance was real.

Did she ever talk about, though, the possibility that MJ could also be using her or the perception and how she felt about the perception that he might be using this as a publicity stunt? Because he was in the midst of this child sex abuse, these allegations at the time as well. I think that my answer to that is that their love was very genuine and they were in love and they were in a real relationship and

slept in bed together and were very normal but I think that when you're that famous there's a lot of people around and I think both camps kind of had people in their ears about each other and you know my mom started to perceive that maybe he was on drugs and he started to maybe understand

get the idea that she was onto him maybe being on drugs. And then I think there was paranoia. I think my grandmother was apprehensive about the marriage and brought that idea up to my mom. And I think it just kind of exploded. You know, Riley, I was wondering, because...

your mother died before she could finish the memoir, there are big sections of her life that are missing. Were there gaps in her life that you had to fill in? And what aspects of her life, really, that you feel were most absent? I think that because when she did these tapes, this was in the last sort of five years of her life, and it was the hardest time for her. It was just post her addiction and divorce. And

And then my brother died. So when she did the tapes, I think that she was coming from a place of sort of hopelessness or like heartbreak. And there was a lot of her life that was like really beautiful. And most of our lives, honestly, were very fun and joyful and wild and eccentric and colorful and beautiful.

and poetic and just so special. And so I felt like that was missing. And I tried to, you know, add a little bit of that. I don't know if I... I honestly don't know if enough of that was in there, you know, when I think back, because I think back to...

Our lives together. And at the end of the book, I say, like, I know we all would have done it again. And I know that, you know, because it was a really harsh turn when she started taking drugs at 40. And prior to that, it was like kind of a magical, like my brother and I would always say, like, we're so lucky with how, you know, how much fun we had growing up.

Yeah, well, I chuckled about how she really didn't make you guys go to school if you didn't want to. There was one story I think you told where she drove you to school and you and your brother were like, please, we don't want to go. And so she turned around and took you for ice cream. That was like all the time. It was a constant thing. And my dad was like, so, you know, my dad...

is very intellectual and reads a lot and is really smart and cerebral and also emotional. But, like, you know, education was important to him. And to her, she just, she didn't care for school at all. So she would, you know, we would arrive and go, no, no, we don't, you know, we want to stay with you today. And she would, you know, just...

turn around, take us to the toy store, take us to get ice cream, take us to the studio with her, and we would just spend the day. And yeah, I mean, that happened so often that I didn't graduate high school. Do you ever have plans of maybe getting your GED? I always want to. It's something that like, it's a real, it's really hard because I write and I think I was somebody who would have wanted to go to finish school and go to college. And

My education really suffered because of the way that we lived. And I really see it when I'm writing, especially like the concepts. Like my vocabulary doesn't match. I can't translate the concepts I have sometimes when I'm writing and it really holds me back. And so I do think about that.

I want to ask you a little bit more about your mother's music career and her singing. She didn't come out with her own music until the early 2000s. What was her relationship to music and singing? I mean, it was everything to her. You know, when she's talking about getting through her grief and all of that in the book, she kind of talks about, you know, listening to Pink Floyd and like the music was kind of her escape.

And I think that it was like a real release for her. And then when she started writing, like the only reason she began to write and do music was, you know, it was totally personal. It was therapeutic. Yeah.

Record execs, though, were always trying to get her to countrify her music. Yeah. Did she ever talk about that? Maybe the frustration she felt? Because, I mean, she was like a, you know, she had the edge in her music. It's so funny because, like, Elvis isn't very country, you know? I think maybe they're trying to appeal to a group of people, but, you know, it's rock and roll. And, yeah.

She would come home all the time from the studio and she'd always play us her demos in the car and blast it really loud. And we'd sit in there and I remember a few times where there'd be a song she'd write that I'd love. And she'd come home and go, you know, this is the new version. And it would be like, like twangy, you know, country, nothing against country. I love country. But like it wasn't what she wanted to do.

And I would say something as a child. I'd say, you know, I don't like that. I don't like the guitar. I don't like this version. And she didn't either. And she was like, oh, God, you know, they're just trying to get me to do this. They want me to cover Elvis songs. And so it was difficult. But, you know, she had so much fun. She loved being on tour. We had, like, the best time ever. We all went on tour together. I would go. Me and my brother would go with him. My dad played bass.

She was married to her husband at the time, who was her MD. And so we'd all go on tour together. And it was like a really fun experience as a family. She loved it. But I think she also said in the book, it was really disorienting to look out in the audience and see Elvis impersonators. Yeah.

She used to, before shows, like, peek out the side of the curtain and find where they would be so that she wasn't surprised when she went out there. And she would just peek around and kind of go, okay, there's one in the back, there's one over there, like, so she wasn't shocked. Because it was disorienting because it, like, she's seeing images of her father, but a caricature of her father in many ways. Yeah, I mean, it's like some kind of wild fever dream to...

go out on stage and perform to your dead father, you know, or like someone in costume. It's bizarre. I think that the way people, people's relationship to him was as if he was like this sort of like God, you know, and so I don't think there was a lot of humanizing going on with her. I think it was beyond, it's not that they had, you know, ill intentions. I think that

They were just fans. And she just maybe didn't realize how weird that would be for her. Well, Riley, thank you for being so gracious with your time and sharing your story and your mother's story. And I'm so sorry for your losses, but I thank you so much for your bravery and talking about it with us. Thank you. I appreciate you talking to me.

Riley Keough is an actress, producer, and co-author of the new book From Here to the Great Unknown, which she wrote with her mother, Lisa Marie Presley. Presley died in 2023 at the age of 54. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer is Adam Staniszewski. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Lincoln Financial.

The questions around retirement have gotten tiring. Instead of, have you saved up enough? Shouldn't they be asking, what is it that you love to do and how can we help you keep doing it? The truth is, you're not slowing down. So Lincoln Financial believes your retirement plan should be more of an action plan, a hiking plan, a music plan, a sailing plan. The point is, whatever you're passionate about, Lincoln Financial can help make sure you never stop.

At Lincoln Financial, they have the products to help protect and grow your financial future so you can keep doing more of what you love. Make your pastimes last a lifetime at lincolnfinancial.com slash action plan. Lincoln Financial, marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation. It's insurance companies and broker-dealer affiliate, Lincoln Financial Distributors, Inc. Copyright 2024, Lincoln National Corporation.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Capella University. Capella's programs teach skills relevant to your career, so you can apply what you learn right away. See how Capella can make a difference in your life at capella.edu.