In the summer of 2008, Lisa Marie Presley sat down for lunch at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York with a writer from Marie Claire magazine.
Lisa Marie was Elvis Presley’s only child. She was 40 years old, and she was pregnant with twins. After lunch she had a very ordinary errand on her list. She went shopping for maternity clothes with her husband.
She sounded thrilled about the babies. “I’m 40! I’m lucky to even be able to do this,” she told the magazine.
She also talked about how her life had changed. Looking back on her years as a mom so far, she put it this way: “I grew up with my kids a little bit. But now, it’s like, phase two. I’m 100 percent ready to focus on my children.”
But the part of the interview that still makes moms smile wasn’t about the babies on the way. It was about the daughter she already had.
That daughter was Riley Keough, Elvis’s granddaughter. Back then she was 19, and she and her mom were about as close as a mother and a grown girl can get.
So how close was that, exactly? The writer, Allison Glock, called them “Gilmore-girls close,” a nod to the mother-daughter TV show “Gilmore Girls.” Those were the writer’s words, not Lisa Marie’s. Then came the real answer, and the number in it came from Lisa Marie herself.
“The two talk on the phone “about 16 times a day.” They live and travel together, lugging their three cats along.”
Sixteen calls a day. They shared a home and went on the road together, with three cats along for the ride.
Lisa Marie said Riley was “past the hormones and boys nuttiness” by then. Now her daughter came to her with the bigger questions about life. And Lisa Marie’s advice sounded like any mom who’s made a few wrong turns of her own.
“When she asks me what to do, I say, ‘I can tell you, based on the mistakes I’ve made, but I know you have to experience it yourself. I don’t want to stop you by saying, Don’t go down that road. But really, don’t go down it.'”
That teenage girl on the other end of all those calls grew up to be an actress, and in this Entertainment Tonight clip you can see how she channeled her rock star mom in “Daisy Jones & the Six.”
Riley Keough on channeling her rock star mom, Lisa Marie
Now back to that lunch in New York, because the sweetest moment came right at the end.
The interview was wrapping up when Lisa Marie’s phone rang. It was Riley. Who knows which call of the day it was.
Lisa Marie picked up. The writer watched her face soften as she listened to her daughter. And then she said it, right there at the table.
“I love you too, baby.”
That’s how the whole magazine story ended. After all the talk about fame and family and turning 40, the last word went to a mom on the phone with her girl.
A few months later, on Oct 7, 2008, the twins arrived. Their names were Harper and Finley, and Riley became a big sister to two baby girls.