Hundreds of mourners began arriving at Graceland on Sunday morning to pay their respects to singer Lisa Marie Presley at the Memphis, Tennessee, mansion she inherited from her father, rock legend Elvis Presley.
Some fans held flowers as they waited on the lawn of Graceland, where Lisa Marie lived as a child with her father and mother, actress Priscilla Presley.
Lisa Marie died on January 12 at the age of 54. Earlier that day, she had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital after reportedly suffering cardiac arrest at her home.
She is survived by her daughters, actress Riley Keough, 33, and 14-year-old twins Finley and Harper Lockwood.
The Memphis mansion was turned into a museum and tourist attraction after her father died of a drug overdose in 1977. Thousands of fans make yearly pilgrimages to the home with its iconic gates on Elvis’s death date and birth date, January 8 and August 16, respectively.
Lisa Marie attended the January 8 ceremony as well as the Golden Globes ceremony on January 10 and was seated with her mother and Elvis actor Austin Butler, who won a Best Actor award.
Sunday’s service to honour Lisa Marie began with the singing of Amazing Grace by Jason Clark & The Tennessee Mass Choir. The memorial programme included a statement by the Presley family that read: “We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the love, compassion and support you have shown our family during this difficult time. We will always be grateful.”
Filmmaker Joel Weinshanker (Wedding at Graceland, Christmas at Graceland) said Lisa Marie requested for her funeral to “not be sad” and that they will try to honour her wish in the coming proceedings.
AC Wharton, the former mayor of Memphis recalled the “hard times” the city faced when Lisa Marie was born in 1968 but how important her birth was at the time.
“Before Beyonce and Jay Z had their daughter Blue Ivy and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had their son Archie, Elvis and Priscilla had their daughter Lisa Marie,” said Mr Wharton.
As the only daughter of the King of Rock & Roll, he described Lisa Marie as “the conduit to the throne” and “the keeper of the flame”.
Mr Wharton added: “I don’t know much about Hollywood, I can’t speak for New York or any other city where Lisa may have spent time, but I can tell you that Lisa Marie was this city’s precious jewel.”
Billy Corgan’s performance of To Sheila by his band The Smashing Pumpkins was followed by a tribute from Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.
“Mothers losing children, there are no words for it,” she said. “For Riley, Harper and Finley, and for the entire family, we march forward in support of you, all of us are with you and we will help you as best we can. If you just put out your hand, we will be there.”
She was followed by singer Alanis Morissette performing an emotional rendition of her song Rest.
Priscilla Presley then thanked everyone for coming to honour her daughter and read out a poem written by Riley, which said: “I have no idea how to put my mother into words, the truth is there are too many … My manners, my temper, my wildness, my tenacity. I’m a product of your heart. My sisters are a product of your heart. My brother is a product of your heart.”
Axl Rose also spoke about his friend Lisa Marie before performing the Guns N’ Roses song November Rain.
After the service, mourners made a procession through Graceland's Meditation Garden, where she is to be laid to rest next to her son, Benjamin Keough and near her father.
Lisa Marie began her music career in the 2000s with two albums, To Whom It May Concern and Now What, that made the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
She was married and divorced four times, including to pop star Michael Jackson, actor Nicholas Cage and musician Michael Lockwood.
Agencies contributed to this report
Who has been sanctioned?
Daniella Weiss and Nachala
Described as 'the grandmother of the settler movement', she has encouraged the expansion of settlements for decades. The 79 year old leads radical settler movement Nachala, whose aim is for Israel to annex Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where it helps settlers built outposts.
Harel Libi & Libi Construction and Infrastructure
Libi has been involved in threatening and perpetuating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians. His firm has provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of illegal outposts.
Zohar Sabah
Runs a settler outpost named Zohar’s Farm and has previously faced charges of violence against Palestinians. He was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for allegedly participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat.
Coco’s Farm and Neria’s Farm
These are illegal outposts in the West Bank, which are at the vanguard of the settler movement. According to the UK, they are associated with people who have been involved in enabling, inciting, promoting or providing support for activities that amount to “serious abuse”.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
BAD%20BOYS%3A%20RIDE%20OR%20DIE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Adil%20El%20Arbi%20and%20Bilall%20Fallah%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EWill%20Smith%2C%20Martin%20Lawrence%2C%20Joe%20Pantoliano%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sweet%20Tooth
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECreator%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJim%20Mickle%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EChristian%20Convery%2C%20Nonso%20Anozie%2C%20Adeel%20Akhtar%2C%20Stefania%20LaVie%20Owen%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
