Elvis Presley & Priscilla Influenced Granddaughter Riley Keough’s Unique, ‘Southern Style’ Parenting With Daughter Tupelo
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Whether we want them to or not, our parents often impact the way we raise our kids. (Even if we’re vowing to do things differently, they still had an influence!) But for Riley Keough, it goes back even further. She credits her unique, “Southern-style” parenting in part to her mom, the late Lisa Marie Presley, but also to her famous grandparents, the late Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley. The Daisy Jones and the Six star opened up about how she copies some of the parenting methods her family used when raising her 2-year-old daughter Tupelo, who she shares with husband Ben Smith-Petersen.
“I think that I always say it’s this southern style of parenting, but it’s actually very specifically my family,” Keough told author Taylor Jenkins Reid about her parenting style during a stop on her book tour for her late mom’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, per PEOPLE. “I think it is from the south, but whatever way [my mom] was parented was how I was parented in a sense. And I also now sort of parent that way.”
“It’s really loving and tactile and smothering — no boundaries,” she continued. For the crazy-famous family, that actually makes a lot of sense. Keough also explained why she decided to open up more about her family dynamic in her mom’s posthumous memoir. “I thought putting in the way that my family in the south spoke to each other in this totally insane way, kind of could help paint the picture of absolutely the wildness,” she explained during the appearance.
Tupelo, who shares her name with the city Elvis grew up in, was born via surrogate in 2022. Last month, the toddler helped her mom with the release of Lisa’s memoir, which Keough co-wrote. “A few of you might just get a very exclusive, special edition copy of FROM HERE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN signed by Tupelo,” she captioned an adorable video on Instagram. The little girl is sitting on the floor with a marker and scribbling on a coloring sheet and a throwback photo of Keough with her mom. It’s so cool to see how the fame and the mundane blend together like that, even with Elvis’s great-granddaughter.
In an interview with Elle for the December 2024 cover, Keough reflected on her childhood and “how wonderfully colourful my upbringing was.” She explained, “It wasn’t about the fame or anything. I know that’s unusual, but it was more so that there was a lot of joy. Things were very big and fun, all the time. So I kinda look back and – wow! – I can’t believe all that happened. We travelled to so many places and did so many things. And now my life is quite simple. I can’t believe that was real, because we did so much.”
And now she gets to embark on new experiences with her daughter, and her famous family lives on through another generation. That’s pretty amazing!
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