Earlier this month, Benjamin Keough, the 27 year-old grandson of Elvis Presley, tragically committed suicide at his mother’s home in Calabasas, California. Now, his grandmother Priscilla Presley has broken her silence to give her thoughts on her beloved grandson’s death.

“These are some of the darkest days of my family’s life,” Presley wrote on Facebook. “The shock of losing Ben has been devastating. Trying to put all the pieces together of all the possible whys has penetrated my soul. Each day I wake up I pray it will get better. Then, I think of my daughter and the pain she is going through as she was a doting mother.”

“Ben’s father, Danny, who is completely lost, as Ben was his only son,” she added. “Riley, so loving and so close to him; Harper and Finley, who absolutely adored Ben. Navarone, who struggles deeply with loss and death. Rest In Peace Ben, you were loved.”

Keough was reportedly found dead on July 12 from an “intraoral shotgun wound.” Police arrived at his mother Lisa Marie Presley’s mansion at 6 a.m. to find that the 27 year-old had locked himself in the bathroom and shot himself in the head. That night, he had been celebrating the birthdays of his girlfriend Diana Pinto and Ben Smith-Peterson, the husband of Keough’s sister Riley.

After Keough’s passing, his close friend Brandon Howard told People magazine that he had struggled with the pressures of being a Pressley, adding that this “absolutely” contributed to his suicide.

“That kind of pressure is definitely a part of what happened,” Howard said of his friend. “It’s a tough thing when you have a lot of pressure with your family and living up to a name and an image. It’s a lot of pressure. It’s almost like you’re pressured into having to be a musician, having to be an actor. It was good for him to go around the world and discover himself and have his own friends. You never know what triggers it. You never know … It’s so random.”

He added that he had known that Keough was battling depression.

“Sometimes he struggled with depression, which is a serious thing with (the current pandemic) and everything happening right now and everybody being locked in the house,” Howard said. “It takes a lot. I wish I could have been there.”

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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