Meet Riley Keough – Michael Jackson’s stepdaughter & Elvis’ granddaughter who’s playing a stripper on the big screen
HER grandad was Elvis Presley and her stepdads have included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage. Riley Keough is Hollywood royalty — so it’s no surprise that the 32-year-old fell into acting. And she is now set to make her name in wild new comedy drama Zola, starring as a stripper who sleeps with countless men. […]
HER grandad was Elvis Presley and her stepdads have included Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage.
Riley Keough is Hollywood royalty — so it’s no surprise that the 32-year-old fell into acting.
And she is now set to make her name in wild new comedy drama Zola, starring as a stripper who sleeps with countless men.
Riley, who is tipped for awards for her portrayal of nightclub performer Stefani, has herself experienced a roller-coaster life that wouldn’t be out of place on the silver screen.
Her mum, Lisa Marie Presley, got through much of an estimated £150million left to her by her dad Elvis after his death at 42 in 1977.
And her musician dad Danny Keough was reduced to sleeping on mattresses in trailer parks after divorcing Lisa Marie when Riley was just five.
Traumatically, last summer her younger brother Benjamin took his own life by shooting himself in the head at a joint birthday party held for his girlfriend and Riley’s husband, Ben Smith-Petersen.
Troubled 27-year-old Ben was found to have traces of cocaine and alcohol in his blood at the time of his death at Lisa Marie’s Californian mansion.
VERY INTENSE
Riley described her brother as her “twin soul” and was so devastated by his violent death that she could not speak for two weeks.
Now the actress, who has starred in Mad Max: Fury Road, The Runaways and Logan Lucky, has trained to be a “death doula” — providing support to the grieving.
Riley is no stranger to being unsettled. During her childhood her mum was married four times — to her dad Danny, the troubled Jackson, Oscar-winning actor Cage and guitarist Michael Lockwood.
After splitting from Lockwood in 2016 Lisa Marie claimed in court documents that “hundreds of inappropriate photos of children” had been found on his computer.
Clearly though, it was the loss of her beloved brother that has shaken Riley the most.
She said: “There’s this sense of the fragility of life and how every moment matters to me now.”
The shadow of Elvis cast a long shadow over Riley, even though she was born long after his death.
Lisa Marie, the legendary singer’s only child, was nine when he suffered a fatal heart attack and she later strove to carve out her own musical legacy, releasing three albums.
Their iconic name made the Presleys prime targets for the Church of Scientology, and Riley’s grandmother Priscilla has been a long-time member.
Lisa Marie and Danny wed at a small ceremony at the church’s Hollywood headquarters in October 1988.
Less than nine months later, Danielle Riley Keough was born.
With one of the greatest cases of understatement, Riley said: “Looking back on it, I’m like, ‘Wow, my upbringing was very intense’.”
Within six years her parents had divorced, and 20 days after the papers were signed, her mum stunned the showbiz world by marrying pop legend Jacko.
At the time he was facing child abuse allegations, but she felt certain he was innocent and believed she could help him.
The Thriller singer was already struggling to cope with the drugs that would ultimately end his life in 2009.
Escapism was at hand for Riley, who lived at Jackson’s theme park-style California home Neverland, complete with its own zoo and rides.
Riley said: “It was like being at Disneyland all day.”
When she was not living there, she would be at the Presleys’ world-famous Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, with her mum.
In stark contrast, visits to her dad offered her an insight into impoverished America.
She recalled: “My father had mattresses on the floor of his apartments.
“He lived in cabins and trailer parks. He just didn’t have much money.”
It didn’t bother the innocent-eyed Riley — in fact she enjoyed his lifestyle.
Aged eight, she once told her dad over breakfast: “I want to grow up and be poor like you.”
That comment, she realised only later, was “wildly offensive” — but perhaps she had wanted to get away from her cosy other life, in which a security guard would accompany her to school.
Jackson was her stepdad for two years, with his marriage to Lisa Marie ending in January 1996.
Next, her mum got engaged to singer John Oszajca, before breaking it off to wed Presley aficionado Cage in 2002. But he lasted just 107 days as Riley’s second stepdad.
At the age of 15 Riley started to make a name of her own as a model, working for Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior. The obvious path was to head into the music industry.
Her brother Benjamin had signed a record deal in the hope of following in his grandfather’s footsteps, but never released any material.
But Riley, who plays the piano, preferred the idea of making movies.
She dropped out of school and starred in her first movie The Runaways in 2010 at the age of 20, alongside Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.
This was followed by roles in The Good Doctor in 2011, alongside Orlando Bloom, and 2012’s Magic Mike, with Channing Tatum.
While making Magic Mike, she fell for British actor Alex Pettyfer, and they were set to get married the same year, before he broke it off.
Not long afterwards she started shooting Mad Max: Fury Road in Namibia, where she met Australian stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen.
They wed in February 2015 and their honeymoon lasted two weeks, until she had to start work on the US TV drama series The Girlfriend Experience.
TIPPING POINT
Riley’s role as a prostitute required sex scenes, but she said at the time: “Ben understands film. He works in the industry.
“He gets how it works and he’s very, very cool. I’m lucky with that.”
By 2016 Riley had found stability — while her mum’s fourth marriage was about to end in deep acrimony.
After ten years with Michael Lockwood, Lisa Marie accused him of mismanaging her finances and keeping questionable images of children.
His lawyer denied both claims.
The bitter legal battle for custody of their 12-year-old twin girls Harper and Finley is yet to be resolved.
During the court proceedings Lisa Marie, who inherited Elvis’s estate at the age of 25, filed documents which claimed she was £12million in debt.
But those problems were dwarfed by Benjamin’s mental health crisis, which was reaching tipping point.
He had already tried to kill himself six months prior to his death in July 2020 and had been in rehab for his drink and drugs problems. Finally losing Benjamin knocked Riley for six.
She said: “The first four or five months after his suicide, I couldn’t get out of bed. I was totally debilitated. I couldn’t talk for two weeks.”
But with the help of her husband and friends, Riley started to get herself back on an even keel.
She found that one way of dealing with the trauma was to take the Art Of Death midwifery course, run by a woman called Olivia Bareham in Los Angeles.
Writing about it on Instagram, Riley said: “We are taught that it’s a morbid subject to talk about.
“Or we’re so afraid of it that we’re unable to talk about it. Then of course it happens to us, and we are very ill- prepared.”
On the first anniversary of her brother’s death, she opened up about their last moment together.
She wrote: “I didn’t hug you properly because I thought you had Covid. I wish I’d hugged you properly. I miss you every day.”
Now it appears that Riley, who describes herself as a “workaholic”, is throwing herself completely into her work.
Following on from Zola, which was made prior to Benjamin’s death, she has made The Guilty, with Jake Gyllenhaal, and will take a lead role in a 13-part TV series called Daisy Jones & The Six.
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When casting directors see her stirring performance in Zola, which opens in cinemas on Friday, even bigger parts are sure to follow.
But Riley insists she will cope if they do not.
She said: “I don’t care if I fail. I have this attitude of, ‘Well, then I’ll just do better’.”
