Priscilla Presley is looking back on her daughter Lisa Marie Presley's tragic death.
While promoting her upcoming memoir, "Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis," Priscilla, 80, told People about the decision to take Lisa Marie off life support in Jan. 2023.
"It was the second saddest day of my life, other than losing Elvis," Priscilla shared. "It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that Lisa was gone."
Lisa Marie was Priscilla and the late Elvis Presley's only child. The 54-year-old died of a small bowel obstruction that developed after she underwent bariatric surgery years earlier.
Priscilla recalled that Lisa Marie's ex-husband, Danny Keough, found her unresponsive at home and called Priscilla to come meet them at the hospital.
"We were there all day long," Priscilla told People. "Lisa really wasn't breathing, so she was on the ventilator. For hours we were there waiting, hoping and praying until the doctor came in and said, 'Priscilla, I'm so sorry, she's gone."."
"We just couldn't believe it -- didn't want to believe it," the "Naked Gun" actress continued. "It was hard on all of us, it still is."
Priscilla has experienced other tragedies in her famous family. Her grandson, Lisa Marie and Danny's son Benjamin Keough, died by suicide at age 27 in 2020. Priscilla has also helped her 38-year-old son Navarone Garibaldi, whom she shares with ex Marco Garibaldi, get clean from drug addiction.
"It hasn't been easy at all. But you have to find strength," Priscilla told People, adding that Navarone is currently sober and in a "good place."
Priscilla also shared that she's found joy being a great-grandmother to granddaughter Riley Keough’s two children that she shares with husband Ben Smith-Petersen.
In People's excerpt from her memoir, out Sept. 23, Priscilla recalled that Lisa Marie "was already gone" when she rushed to see her daughter at the hospital.
"She was hooked to a machine that was breathing for her, and she had a heartbeat," Priscilla recalled. "There was little brain activity. Her spirit, always so vital, wasn't there. Riley later told us that while she was still on her flight, she had felt her mother's spirit pass. But none of us was ready to give up yet."
Priscilla said a nurse convinced her to get something to eat and drink in another room, where her cousin Ivy comforted her. But then, they "heard an emergency alarm" coming from Lisa Marie's room.
"It was a code blue; Lisa's heart had stopped," Priscilla remembered. "As I started back to my daughter, the nurse detained Ivy and spoke to her in a whisper. Nodding toward me, she told Ivy, 'Come with us. I need you to stand right behind her. She's going to fall, and you will need to catch her.'"
Priscilla said after a doctor told her Lisa Marie would have "no quality of life at all" if they kept her on life support, she thought about her "wild, rebellious, passionate girl, lying in a vegetative state for the rest of her life" and made the devastating decision to pull the plug.
"It was unbearable. I began to sob," Priscilla recalled. "I don't remember falling. I know that Ivy caught me. After that, everything went dark. I can't remember. I don't want to remember."
Last month, Priscilla's former business partners filed a lawsuit accusing her of pulling Lisa Marie's life support to "control" her daughter's trust and Graceland. They're suing Priscilla for breach of contract and fraud and are seeking $50 million.
In response, Priscilla's lawyer, Marty Singer, slammed the filing as "one of the most shameful, ridiculous, salacious, and meritless" lawsuits he had ever seen.
"Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis" comes out Sept. 23.