Riley Keough, artist and heir in the spotlight

Riley Keough has spent the last few years moving between acclaim on screen, growing influence behind the camera, and a high stakes role as steward of Graceland. She earned Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Daisy Jones & The Six, anchored two notable 2024 releases, Hulu’s Under the Bridge and the feature Sasquatch Sunset, and secured her family’s landmark home in court after a bogus foreclosure attempt, which culminated in a guilty plea in February 2025.

Early life and what shaped her career

Born in Santa Monica in 1989, the eldest child of Lisa Marie Presley and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley, Keough began as a model, then shifted to acting. Early work in The Runaways, Magic Mike and Mad Max: Fury Road led to standout turns in American Honey, The Lodge and Zola. The Girlfriend Experience brought a Golden Globe nomination, setting up the leap to leading a series with Daisy Jones & The Six.

The music persona that landed

Keough’s performance as Daisy Jones, a 1970s singer navigating ambition and addiction, resonated with viewers who expected mythology and found craft. She sang on the show’s original songs, balanced swagger with vulnerability, and earned an Emmy nomination for lead actress. The series also refreshed her public image, from legacy figure to working musician actor with range.

2024 on screen, two different registers

Under the Bridge

Keough portrayed author Rebecca Godfrey, and also served as an executive producer, in a dramatization of the 1997 murder of Reena Virk. The show aimed for empathy over sensationalism, and critics were divided. Some praised the sensitivity and performances, others found the storytelling uneven, a reminder that true crime, handled carefully, still tests audience patience.

Sasquatch Sunset

In this dialogue free fable, Keough and Jesse Eisenberg disappear into creature work, playing members of a Bigfoot family observed over a year. The film’s tone, absurd and melancholic, asked viewers to invest in gesture and rhythm rather than plot. It is the sort of high risk, low vanity choice that has become a Keough signature.

Behind the camera and company building

Keough’s directorial debut, War Pony, co directed with Gina Gammell, won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes for best first feature. The film grew out of years of collaboration with Lakota co writers Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, and prioritized local casting and community input. Financing was, in her words, “very challenging,” yet the result validated a patient, partnership first approach. Through their company Felix Culpa, Keough and Gammell have kept developing work that leans into new voices and lived experience.

Graceland, inheritance and the courts

Keough became sole trustee of Lisa Marie Presley’s estate in 2023, which includes oversight of Graceland through the Promenade Trust. In May 2024, a company claimed Lisa Marie had used Graceland as collateral for a loan and moved to auction the property. Keough sued, a judge blocked the sale, and state authorities opened an investigation. In February 2025, a Missouri woman pleaded guilty to mail fraud for orchestrating the scheme, confirming that the loan never existed. Graceland remains in the family’s hands.

What the legal timeline looks like

Recognition, in context

• Primetime Emmy nomination, lead actress, Daisy Jones & The Six
• Golden Globe nominations, The Girlfriend Experience and Daisy Jones & The Six
• Caméra d’Or, co director, War Pony

“It was not easy, it was very challenging,” she said of getting War Pony financed, a concise summary of an unlikely path that keeps repeating.

The memoir that reframed the family story

After Lisa Marie Presley’s death in 2023, Keough finished her mother’s memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, drawing on taped recollections and adding context in her own voice. The book became an Oprah’s Book Club selection in 2024, and a paperback with her afterword arrived in November 2025.

She has called completing the book a privilege, and a bittersweet one, an effort to show her mother as complex and human.

Personal life and privacy

Keough married Australian stunt performer Ben Smith Petersen in 2015. Their daughter, Tupelo, was born via surrogate in 2022. The couple shares little about their children, and Keough has spoken about prioritizing family time alongside work, a boundary that has served her during a stretch of public scrutiny.

How Hollywood sees her now

The discourse around celebrity children is familiar, and Keough does not escape it. Yet the recent arc of her career, a blend of star turns, left field choices and hands on producing, has nudged the conversation toward what she makes rather than whom she is related to. Daisy Jones proved she can anchor a hit, War Pony showed a director with patience and care, Under the Bridge took on a fraught true story, and Sasquatch Sunset leaned into risk. On set and in court filings, she has taken ownership of her last name by doing the work.

What to watch for next

• Continued development at Felix Culpa, with projects aimed at early career filmmakers
• Further acting choices that prioritize unusual roles over familiar ones
• Ongoing stewardship of Graceland, a cultural site that remains both a family trust and a global tourist draw

In a crowded industry, Riley Keough’s through line is simple, she keeps choosing the interesting path, and then lives with the consequences, which is what real careers are built on.