Lisa Marie Presley spent her whole life as Elvis Presley’s little girl. In August 2022, she got a brand-new title. Grandma.
Her oldest child, Riley Keough, is Elvis’s granddaughter. Riley and her husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, welcomed a baby girl that summer. They named her Tupelo Storm. Tupelo is the Mississippi town where Elvis was born, so the little one carries a bit of her great-grandfather everywhere she goes.
That made four generations of the Presley family, with Elvis at one end and a brand-new baby at the other. Riley has shared how her mom felt about that baby, and she put it in writing.
Lisa Marie, who passed away in January 2023, had been working on a memoir. She’d made recordings of her memories, telling her life story in her own words. Riley used those recordings to finish the book for her mom. It came out in October 2024 as “From Here to the Great Unknown.”
Riley has talked about what it was like to sit with those tapes and hear her mother’s voice again. She opened up about it on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” and it’s worth a few minutes of your time.
Riley Keough talks about finishing her mom’s book from old recordings
So what did Lisa Marie call her granddaughter?
Plenty of grandparents come up with a pet name for a new baby. Some go with “peanut” or “sweet pea” and leave it at that. Lisa Marie picked something a little softer, and a little deeper.
Before the book came out, People magazine shared an excerpt. In it, Riley wrote that Lisa Marie “would call Tupelo our little light.”
Our little light.
Notice that little word “our.” To Lisa Marie, Tupelo was a light for the whole family to share.
The book itself was a mother and daughter project. Lisa Marie wanted Riley to be part of it, and Riley has explained why her mom asked her to write it together. She shared that story on “Live with Kelly and Mark.”
Riley explains why her mom wanted to write the book with her
Riley’s family has kept growing. She and Ben quietly welcomed a second child in early 2025. Riley’s grandmother, Priscilla Presley, who is Lisa Marie’s mom, sounded thrilled when she talked to People in September 2025. “She’s got an amazing husband and two great children, so I’m happy for her very much,” Priscilla said.
Riley has her own words about being a mom, too. She wrote a tribute to her mom, and tucked inside it was one short wish that any daughter who’s become a mother will understand.
“I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me.”
Read that again with Tupelo in mind. Riley learned how to love a daughter from Lisa Marie, and now she has a daughter of her own to pass it on to.
Lisa Marie gave her granddaughter a name only a grandma would come up with. Now Riley is the one raising that little girl, the same one her mom called “our little light.”