Benjamin Keough was the son of Lisa Marie Presley and the only grandson of Elvis Presley. He died on July 12, 2020, in Calabasas, California, at 27. Searches for Benjamin Keough’s cause of death point to one documented fact, and this page keeps to it. Everything else here is family history and dates, plus what the people closest to him chose to say.
Benjamin Storm Presley Keough died on July 12, 2020, at a home in Calabasas, California. He was 27. After an autopsy, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office recorded his manner of death as suicide. No official finding has ever addressed why, and none of the top results that claim otherwise are working from a document.
Key Takeaways
- Benjamin Storm Presley Keough died on July 12, 2020, aged 27.
- The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office listed the manner of death as suicide.
- This article does not describe the method, the scene, or any detail of how it happened. That follows standard safe messaging guidance, and several ranking pages ignore it.
- No coroner record and no family statement have ever explained why.
- Lisa Marie Presley, his mother, died on January 12, 2023, of a separate and unrelated cause.
| Detail | Record |
| Full name | Benjamin Storm Presley Keough |
| Born | October 21, 1992, Tampa, Florida |
| Died | July 12, 2020, Calabasas, California |
| Age at death | 27 |
| Manner of death | Suicide, per the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office |
| Parents | Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough |
| Sister | Riley Keough, actress |
| Grandparents | Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley |
| Resting place | Meditation Garden, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee |
| Age he would be now | 33, turning 34 on October 21, 2026 |
Who Benjamin Keough was
Benjamin was born in Tampa, Florida, on October 21, 1992, the second child of Lisa Marie Presley and the musician Danny Keough. The couple divorced in 1994. Riley Keough, the actress, is his older sister and is 37 now.
Benjamin Keough’s Cause of Death: People noticed the resemblance to his grandfather immediately, and his mother said so herself, calling it uncanny. That likeness followed him everywhere. That is a strange inheritance for someone private, and by every public account, he was. Being the child of a musician puts a life on display before you choose anything about it. Our profile of Lourdes Leon’s career in the public eye traces the same pressure from another angle.
He played music. Reports in 2009 said he had signed a record deal. Nothing ever came out under his name. His mother told an interviewer in 2013 that she was letting him move at his own pace.
Benjamin Keough’s Cause of Death: The Official Record
Benjamin died at a home in Calabasas on Sunday, July 12, 2020. The county coroner took the case. Three days later, the county’s Medical Examiner’s Office completed its autopsy and released its findings. It listed the manner of death as suicide. That single line is the whole of the official answer, and the BBC and other outlets reported it on July 15, 2020, attributing it directly to the office.
Two things follow from that, and both matter. The first is that the ruling describes what happened, not why. Coroners establish cause and manner; they do not write conclusions about a person’s state of mind, and no such conclusion exists in this case. The second is that a family is entitled to keep the rest private.
That happens more often than the search results suggest. Our account of Jim Redmond’s cause of death is a plain example. His family confirmed a brief illness and released nothing further. You will find pages that go much further than the coroner did. Several of them lead the search results. This one stops at the record on purpose.
What His Family Said
Lisa Marie Presley did not speak publicly in the first days. Her manager, Roger Widynowski, did it for her, describing her as heartbroken, inconsolable, and beyond devastated. He added a line that has followed her ever since: she adored that boy, and he was the love of her life. She was trying to stay strong for her three daughters, he said.
Two years later, she wrote about the grief herself. For National Grief Awareness Day on August 30, 2022, she published an essay in People. She described herself as destroyed by the loss. Nothing takes the pain away, she wrote. It remains the most direct account any member of the family has given.
Where His Family Laid Him to Rest
Graceland. His family interred him in the Meditation Garden in Memphis, the same plot that holds Elvis Presley, Gladys Presley, Vernon Presley, and Minnie Mae Presley. Five generations of the family now lie in a garden behind the house, a few steps from the tour route that thousands of visitors walk every week.
Lisa Marie Presley’s Death and Why It Belongs Here
People searching this topic almost always land on pages written in 2020, which stop before the next chapter. Lisa Marie Presley died on January 12, 2023, at 54, two and a half years after her son.
Her death was unrelated. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner released its report on July 13, 2023. It gave the cause as the sequelae of a small bowel obstruction. That is a known complication of the bariatric surgery she had years earlier. Her family buried her at Graceland beside her son, and Graceland held a public memorial for her on January 22, 2023. Both graves sit in the same garden now.
What Has Happened Since
Riley Keough carried the family’s story forward. In August 2022, she had a daughter, and she later told Vanity Fair the girl’s name: Tupelo Storm. Storm was her brother’s middle name, and Tupelo is the Mississippi town where Elvis Presley was born.
Then came the book. Lisa Marie Presley had asked her daughter in 2022 to help finish a memoir, and Riley completed it after her mother died. Random House published From Here to the Great Unknown on October 8, 2024, written in both their voices. It deals with Benjamin’s death at length and in the family’s own words, which is something no summary can replace. July 12, 2026, marked six years. He would be 33 today and would turn 34 on October 21, 2026.
What is Documented, and What Only Circulates Online?
A lot of what appears near the top of a search on this name comes from bio aggregator sites that copy each other. Here is the split:
- Documented: the date, the location, the age, the manner of death recorded by the county, the burial at Graceland, and the family statements quoted above.
- Reported but never confirmed: the 2009 record deal. Outlets carried it at the time. No music appeared, and no label has ever discussed it.
- Invented: the money figures. He was 27, he had released nothing commercially, and no filing supports any of the numbers you will see.
- Not documented anywhere: his state of mind, his reasons, or any account of the hours before. Anyone writing that is guessing.
Families keep things private for reasons that belong to them, and time does not always change that. Our piece on Charlie Murphy’s death shows the same pattern from a different angle: he lived with leukemia for years while almost nobody outside his family knew.
The wider picture, Briefly
One family’s loss does not need a statistic to matter. Still, people arrive at a page like this carrying something of their own, so one line of context earns its place. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide was responsible for 48,824 deaths in the United States in 2024. That figure explains nothing about any one person. It does say how many families end up where this one did.
If you came here wanting the family’s own account rather than a summary, the 2024 memoir is where to go next. If you are struggling, help is available, and it works. In the US, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any hour or talk to your doctor. Reaching out early is the whole point.
Conclusion
The story behind Benjamin Keough’s cause of death is ultimately one of verified facts, family remembrance, and respect for privacy. The official record confirms that he died on July 12, 2020, at the age of 27, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office recorded the manner of death as suicide. Beyond that finding, no official source has explained why, and responsible reporting should avoid speculation.
Benjamin is remembered not only as the son of Lisa Marie Presley and the grandson of Elvis Presley but also as a private individual whose life was deeply valued by those closest to him. The heartfelt tributes from his family, his resting place at Graceland, and the memoir completed by Riley Keough provide the most meaningful insight into his legacy.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office recorded his manner of death as suicide, following an autopsy after he died on July 12, 2020.
Twenty-seven. He was born on October 21, 1992, and died on July 12, 2020, three months short of his 28th birthday.
She died on January 12, 2023, at 54. The county coroner gave the cause as the sequelae of a small bowel obstruction, a complication of earlier bariatric surgery. It had nothing to do with her son’s death.
He would be 33 as of August 4, 2026, and would turn 34 on October 21, 2026.
