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After the passing of Elvis Presley’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley on January 12, 2023, her daughter Riley Keough made the headlines after an estate legal battle with her grandmother, Priscilla Presley. The two have recently settled the matter.
Now, fans have become more curious about the young actress’ life. Known for playing Daisy Jones in Daisy Jones & the Six, there’s no doubt that the King of Rock and Roll’s granddaughter has inherited his musical skills.
So how come she apparently lied about her singing abilities to land the title role? In a one-on-one with Collider, Keough said that she “was all in, from the beginning. I just had an instinct about it. It was just something I wanted to do. It was something that was challenging.”
As someone who wasn’t a singer prior to the musical miniseries, she “wanted to learn, just to test myself and see if I could sing and play guitar, and all these things that felt so foreign to me, honestly. It was challenging and it was something that I just wanted to do, to see if I could accomplish.” Here’s the real story behind that.
Riley Keough On Growing Up As Elvis Presley’s Granddaughter
In a recent chat with Interview Magazine, Keough made a rare comment about her grandfather, saying that “one cool thing about being Elvis’ granddaughter is a lot of our family history is very firmly documented.” She also shared that she “was just somebody who was totally obsessed with heritage and where my family came from. And we have so much of it in archives and it’s so cool to have all of this information that other people found.”
When Collider asked her about exploring her “own musical lineage” growing up, the Zola director said that she has been “musical, in the sense that I grew up around music and I listened to music,” and that she “would mess around on the piano when I was little, but nothing serious. I didn’t really know how to play.”
She continued: “I just messed around on the piano. I’d never played a guitar in my life. I’d never had a guitar lesson. And as far as singing goes, I would hum and I would sing with my husband, a little bit here and there. Sometimes my girlfriends and I would be sitting around, singing together. It wasn’t actually something that I had any background in, at all.”
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How Riley Keough Landed Her Role In Daisy Jones & The Six
In a press event for the series, Keough candidly told reporters: “I think I blacked out on that meeting. I don’t really remember what happened. And then I auditioned like everybody else, and lied to them and told them l could sing.” But as soon as filming began, she was challenged by the producers’ demands, such as “belting” her way through a song.
“I was like, what does that even mean?” she said of that time during a conversation with Vanity Fair. “I didn’t even know how one gets to be able to sing loud. I went to a vocal coach and I was like, they need me to belt.” It was a tough task. One of her first failed attempts was singing Lady Gaga‘s Shallow in her car. “I sounded so bad that I started crying,” she said.
“I was like, I can’t do it, and when I can’t do something it lights a fire in me to be able to do it,” she continued. “I was like, I have to do it. I’m gonna go to this vocal coach, and he’s gonna teach me how to f–king belt, whatever I need to do to get this. It really became about pushing myself to do things I’ve never done before.”
How Much Did Riley Keough Inherit From Lisa Marie Presley?
Keough has an estimated net worth of $5 million. The Girlfriend Experience alum made $1.5 million portraying Daisy Jones on the Amazon Prime hit series and is now the owner of Elvis’ mansion, Graceland, as well as his intellectual property rights that “may generate future revenue for her heirs in the form of post-mortem book deals and movies,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It’s unclear how much Keough actually inherited from her mother — who didn’t really get much money from Elvis either. But recently, the new singer and her grandmother have reportedly “reached a middle ground that makes them both happy” after the latter insisted that she was the legal trustee of Lisa Marie’s estate.
Back in February, Joel Weinshanker, a Managing Partner at Elvis Presley Enterprises, released a statement saying that Lisa Marie was “quite certain and quite direct about who she wanted to have the legacy [left] to. That was always Riley and Ben (Lisa’s late son).”
