Elvis Presley's Casket Held a Secret Gift from Lisa Marie Presley to Keep Him Close Forever

Elvis Presley was a doting father to his only daughter Lisa Marie even after he separated from his wife Priscilla in February 1972. The King of Rock n Roll passed away unexpectedly on August 16, 1977, at his home in Graceland. As per People, in her posthumous memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie revealed that she was always 'worried' that her father would die. "I was always worried about my dad dying," she wrote. Hence, on the day of his funeral, the then nine-year-old made a touching gesture to remain with him forever by placing a memento inside his casket.

Robert Kendall, the funeral director, recalled the moving instance when Lisa Marie approached him with a sincere request: "Mister Kendall, can I give this to my daddy? " she said displaying a thin metal bracelet. Touched by her strong resolve Kendall helped her put it on Elvis, lifting the music icon's arm and fastening it around his wrist. According to Mirror, Fearing that the bracelet would be stolen, Priscilla reportedly requested the funeral director to conceal the piece of jewelry before more people showed up to pay their condolences. Kendall obliged and hid it beneath Elvis's shirt. On that day 80,000 fans gathered to pay their last tribute to the music legend at the Forest Hill Cemetery. 

Lisa Marie described in her memoir that as a child she had penned a poem fearing her father's death, "Sometimes I’d see him and he was out of it. Sometimes I would find him passed out. I wrote a poem with the line, 'I hope my daddy doesn’t die.'" The book goes on to mention that the late singer loved to watch her father's live performances. "The electricity of those shows. There’s nothing I’ve felt that’s been even close to that feeling, ever," she continued. "Electrifying is such a generic word, but it really is what it felt like. I loved watching him perform," Lisa Marie wrote. 

CBS News reported that Lisa Marie's daughter Riley Keough told Oprah Winfrey how her mother had a gut feeling something wasn't right the morning her grandfather passed away. "She said goodnight to him, and I think she knew, saying goodnight, that she had some kind of sense. I think she had a sense many times that he wasn't OK. You know, she would tell me that sometimes she would find him in his bathroom looking kind of out of it or holding onto the railing to stand up straight," Keough told while appearing on An Oprah Special: The Presleys — Elvis, Lisa Marie, and Riley in October 2024.

"I think she got a lot of intimate time up there with him. No one else was up there," she added. Keough completed co-writing Lisa Marie's posthumous biography, which included hours of personal experiences she recorded before she died in 2023. Lisa Marie was laid to rest in Graceland beside her father after passing away suddenly from cardiac arrest.