Lisa Marie Presley’s tragic demise may share a “correlation” with the sudden demise of her dad and will have been the results of faulty genes in Elvis’ household tree, a biographer says.
Lisa Marie, 54, died in a Los Angeles hospital on Thursday night simply hours after she was discovered unresponsive in her Calabasas dwelling having suffered cardiac arrest, The Sun studies.
Her demise was confirmed in an emotional assertion issued by her mother Priscilla who remembered Lisa Marie as a “passionate, strong, and loving woman.”
She known as the household’s loss “profound.”
Lisa Marie’s stunning demise comes as the newest heart-related fatality to afflict the Presley lineage.
Elvis himself died from cardiac arrest on the age of 42 in 1977, as did his mother – and Lisa Marie’s grandmother – Gladys on the age of 46 in 1958.
All three of Elvis’ uncles on his mom’s facet additionally handed away from both coronary heart or liver-related points between the ages of 46 and 58.
Author Sally Hoedel printed a biography on the Presley household’s intensive well being troubles, titled Elvis: Destined to Die Young, during which she argued The King’s demise was not attributable to self-destruction and drug abuse as many have been led to consider.
Instead, Hoedel believes Elvis’ demise was a tragic inevitability spurred by unhealthy genes handed down by his maternal grandparents, Bob Smith and Doll Mansell, who have been first cousins.
Those defective genes have been aggravating elements behind his and Gladys’ varied well being points, she says, which Elvis in flip handled with a cocktail of prescribed drugs.
The creator says the untimely deaths within the Presley household “stopped being a coincidence” with Elvis’ passing.
And now within the wake of Lisa Marie’s untimely passing, Hoedel is questioning whether or not her demise could share a genetic hyperlink to the deaths of her father and grandmother earlier than her.
“Lisa Marie has now prematurely left her children, just as Elvis left her in 1977 when she was just nine years old. It’s also just as Gladys left him prior to that,” mentioned Hoedel.
“There is an undeniable pattern of young death in the family with heart, liver, and lung issues prevalent in the family tree.
“It’s obviously too soon to speculate about Lisa Marie, but reports so far do point to a heart-related event.
“I would hate to see her treated unfairly in death, as her father has been.
It took decades to uncover just how ill Elvis was so that we could move past the narrative of him taking too many pills and dying in the bathroom. He deserved more than that and so does she.”
Hoedel mentioned her analysis factors to a lot of explanation why Elvis died at an analogous age to his mom, including that he had illness or dysfunction current in 9 of the eleven bodily features on the time of his demise, together with in his coronary heart.
At least 5 of these illness processes have been current previous to his ascension to superstardom, maybe even since start, she says.
Rather than a star burning out in a reckless spiral of self-destruction – as is usually painted – Hoedel believes Elvis was a person who struggled day-after-day to outlive.
Hoedel believes Lisa Marie’s life bears an analogous story of survival.
“It’s impossible to hear about Lisa Marie’s tragically young death at age fifty-four and not leap to the possibility of a correlation,” added Hoedel.
“His family tree, after all, is half of hers.
“It’s also important to be respectful at this time until we find out more. However, the only thing more tragic than her young death would be the failure to recognise that like her father, her story is not one of self-destruction.
“It is clearly a story of survival, and she did the best she could as the daughter of the most famous person to ever live.”
Family ties
Lisa Marie, like her father, struggled with substance abuse points for a lot of her life.
She started consuming and taking medication on the age of 13 after shedding her dad, grandfather, and great-grandmother all inside a three-year interval.
Lisa Marie ultimately received clear after her mother Priscilla admitted her to a Scientology rehab centre however in later years she grew to become hooked on prescription opioids and struggled with a cocaine dependancy, which she went to rehab for a reported 5 occasions to deal with.
In newer years, Lisa Marie is believed to have been sober, although buddies near the household beforehand instructed The U.S. Sun they’d been nervous about her well being for a while, notably for the reason that suicide demise of her son, Benjamin Keough, who shot himself at a celebration in July 2020.
Both Elvis and his mother Gladys suffered a four-year interval of degenerative well being within the lead-up to their deaths, in keeping with Hoedel.
Research she performed discovered that Gladys had been seeing a heart specialist since at the very least 1956, and was additionally hospitalised for 2 weeks that very same 12 months with a thriller sickness.
Shortly earlier than her demise, Gladys was additionally identified with hepatitis, the origins of which baffled her medical doctors on the time.
The situation, which targets the lungs and liver, was thought to have been associated to Gladys’ alcoholism.
Born and raised in excessive poverty within the deep south, Gladys’ struggles to deal with her son’s meteoric ascension to fame and fortune are effectively documented, with the self-described “most miserable woman in the world” reportedly as soon as telling a good friend over the cellphone, “I wish we were poor again, I really do.”
Growing more and more remoted and depressed as Elvis grew to become a worldwide sensation, Gladys started consuming excessively and taking slimming capsules – a downward spiral that many consider led to her hepatitis analysis and in the end contributed to her demise.
Gladys fell severely unwell only a few months after Elvis enlisted within the US Army. The timing of her downturn in well being spurred theories that Gladys drank herself to demise, wracked with fear and affected by a damaged coronary heart whereas her son was serving abroad in Germany.
For Hoedel, any such claims are simply baseless “romanticism.”
“Gladys has always been painted as this woman whose son became famous, bought her a big house and she just struggled to deal with it all and essentially died of a broken heart,” the creator and historian mentioned in an interview final 12 months.
“But that’s not how it works. I think Elvis and Vernon [Elvis’ dad] both knew who knew how sick she was before he left for the army.
“They were all so sad because I believe for sure that they knew they didn’t have a lot of time left with her.”
Contrary to standard folklore, Hoedel believes – like Elvis – the causes of Gladys’ demise and ill-health lie additional up the household tree – as would possibly Lisa Marie’s.
“The Presleys were incredibly secretive about their health,” Hoedel mentioned, “but I managed to interview people like Nancy Clarke, the daughter of Gladys’ cardiologist, who used to go on house calls with her dad to the Presley home.
“And she told me before her dad passed away, he said there was more to Gladys’ death than what he understood because he’s long been quoted as saying it looked like hepatitis, but it wasn’t, and he couldn’t work out what was wrong with her.”
Hoedel believes that Gladys was truly affected by Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, an inherited and barely identified dysfunction that may trigger lung and liver illness.
“We know Elvis had it because he found to be a carrier for Alpha-1 after his death, so it had to come from somewhere” she added.
“And it all leads back to Gladys’ parents.”
In her e-book, Hoedel examines the well being problems with Elvis’ grandmother, Doll Smith, who’s believed to have suffered from Tuberculosis for greater than 30 years.
“Again, something that doesn’t make sense, but continued to be passed down the family tree and then throughout recorded Elvis history as well,” mentioned Hoedel.
“This book explains how that Tuberculosis was most certainly a misdiagnosis in the early 1900s.
“From there, with the first-cousin marriage, we can see that Gladys most likely inherited two damaged genes and a more serious version of the disease.”
A tragic loss
The extent to which faulty genes could have performed a job in Lisa Marie’s demise stays to be seen.
Hoedel known as the mother of 4’s demise stunning and heartbreaking.
The creator had seen her simply final week in Memphis as followers gathered to have a good time what would’ve been Elvis’ 88th birthday at Graceland.
Speaking on the celebration, Lisa Marie instructed a crowd of ardent Elvis followers: “I keep saying you are the only people who can bring me out of the house. I’m not kidding. I love you back and that’s why I’m here.”
Reflecting on what would show to be one in all Lisa Marie’s remaining public sightings, Hoedel mentioned: “The news of Lisa Marie’s passing is so tragic and shocking.
“Having watched her generously spend time talking to the fans and taking photos with them, makes this even more shocking.
“For me personally, I can’t help but think about Priscilla and how she is now experiencing the loss of a child, which is the same pain she watched Lisa Marie struggle with over the last two years.
“I am also the mother of twin girls who are thirteen so I’m heartbroken for Lisa’s fourteen-year-old twin girls.”
Final look
Lisa Marie’s remaining public look got here on the Golden Globe Awards on Tuesday along with her mother Priscilla and actor Austin Butler, who received the very best actor award for his portrayal of her father in Baz Lurman’s Elvis biopic.
She appeared frail however in good spirits, at one level holding on to Austin’s arm as she moved round.
Lisa Marie shares teenage twins Finley Aaron Love Lockwood and Harper Vivienne Ann Lockwood along with her ex-husband Michael Lockwood.
The U.S. Sun understands that Michael has 50 per cent custody of their 14-year-old daughters and shall be by their facet serving to them to course of the tragedy, which comes simply three years after their brother’s demise.
Lisa Marie spent the ultimate years of her life “wracked with grief” over the passing of her son.
One supply mentioned they’d been involved for her well being for a while.
“Lisa has struggled so much over the years, and living in her dad’s shadow, many who know her have feared she would die young,” mentioned the insider.
“In her final years, she was racked with grief over Ben, he was her baby, and he relied on her heavily. Her world completely fell apart when he died.
“She found it so difficult to cope and barely left the house for months after his death […] Everyone was concerned when he died that she would spiral out of control, but she really tried to keep it together for her girls.”
Lisa Marie is survived by daughter Riley, 33, and twins Harper and Finley, 14.
This story initially appeared in The Sun and was reproduced with permission.
