Riley Keough recently opened up about how her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, kept her shielded from the controversies surrounding Michael Jackson during their marriage, including the sexual abuse allegations against him.
In an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast on January 15, Keough, now 35, shared that her mother worked hard to protect her and her siblings from the media’s scandals. She explained that during the time Lisa Marie and Jackson were married (1994–1996), her mother kept her children unaware of the serious allegations against Jackson. Keough admitted that as a child, she had no knowledge of the allegations, and as an adult, she never felt the need to inquire about them. “I was never told anything. And it’s actually not something I ever asked as an adult. I think it just was what it was,” Keough said.
She also reflected on how her dad, Danny Keough, likely reacted to the news of the allegations, imagining he would have been upset and probably expressed his feelings to her mother, though the children were kept in the dark. “I would imagine that my dad was really heartbroken in reading the news. I would imagine he said all kinds of things to my mom that we didn’t know about,” she shared.
Keough praised her parents for their parenting style, which she believes shielded her from any adult conflicts or sensitive matters. “The way my parents parented was very much like, ‘We don’t fight around the kids. We don’t ever say anything around them. We didn’t know anything,'” she noted.
Keough also reflected on how Lisa Marie’s relationships affected her emotionally. She shared that her mother’s breakups, including her separation from Jackson, deeply impacted her as a child. “I remember crying and being angry every time my mom broke up with someone,” Keough recalled.
Lisa Marie Presley passed away in 2023 at the age of 54, while Michael Jackson had died in 2009 at the age of 50. In her memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, Presley described Jackson as an excellent conversationalist and shared that he left a lasting impact on her life.