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Riley Keough broke down after Oprah Winfrey played recordings of Lisa Marie Presley: "It's a lot..."

"I was so afraid to hear my mother’s voice — the physical connection we have to the voices of our loved ones is profound," Keough said.

Riley Keough was still in the process of grieving her mother, Lisa Marie Presley's, death when she sat down for an exclusive with Oprah Winfrey last year. Keough took a trip down memory lane while discussing the emotional journey of posthumously finishing her mother's memoir 'From Here to the Great Unknown,' which Random House published the same day. During the interview, Keough couldn't hold back her tears when Winfrey played a set of Presley's recordings describing her marriage to Michael Jackson. “He was always super interested in people, and he’d really lift them up," Presley's voice could be heard saying. As per The Mirror, at that instance, Keough was hit with nostalgia simply by listening to her mother's voice. 

Presley's recording went on to describe how everyone around Jackson was affected by his magnetic aura. "Because you’re thinking he’s Michael Jackson, so he can’t do that or whatever. But he can do it; he can," her voice continued. "So he would lift people up. I watched him do it all the time. It was amazing, you know, he did it with me,” the voice clipping concluded. “Just hearing her voice right now was striking, right?" Winfrey consoled Keough. "It's a lot, so I thank you for being here to talk about it." 

In a September exclusive with People, Keough confessed that it was "incredibly painful" to connect with her mother's voice after her tragic death. The 'Beast' actress admitted that she "burst into tears" after listening to her mother's tapes while penning the rest of the memoir. "I began listening to her speak. It was incredibly painful, but I couldn’t stop. It was like she was in the room, talking to me. I instantly felt like a child again, and I burst into tears. My mommy. The tone of her voice," Keough wrote in the introduction of the posthumous memoir. She continued by describing how Presley's life had been under such severe scrutiny that she wasn't sure if she wanted to write a book. 

Keough recalled how she committed herself to the project, and the book started to take shape. However, she also acknowledged that she never imagined writing it by herself. "I was so afraid to hear my mother’s voice — the physical connection we have to the voices of our loved ones is profound." The 'Hold the Dark' actress always had kind words for her stepfather; speaking about her mother's relationship with Jackson, Keough recalled, “She really was obsessed with him. I remember when he would come to the house, and she would run to her bathroom and put her makeup on and panic and want to get herself all dressed up for him."

In an interview with Today, Keough stated that while she was growing up, Presley and Jackson kept things normal. She revealed that they would drop her off at school and that their home was like any other. She also disclosed the cute moniker she gave Jackson: Mimi. Presley died on January 12, 2023, at the age of 54, from the consequences of a small bowel obstruction.