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Riley Keough reveals that growing up she was shielded from the scandals that erupted after her stepfather, Michael Jackson, was accused of sexually abusing underage children.
“I was never told anything,” Riley, 35, said on the Call Her Daddy podcast that dropped Wednesday, January 15.
She was days away from turning 5-years-old when her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, eloped with the King of Pop on May 26, 1994, to the Dominican Republic. The ceremony was held weeks after Presley had officially ended her six-year marriage with Riley’s father, Danny.

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In an April 2003 interview with Rolling Stone, Presley said that Jackson confided in her when he was first accused of child abuse a year prior to their marriage.
“And he was quick to call me and tell me what his side of the story was, so it looked like an extortion situation. I believed him, because he was so convincing,” she told the outlet. “I don’t know…. I just believed everything he said, for some reason.”
The couple officially split in December 1995, and their divorce was finalized the following summer.
Presley, who died in 2023 from cardiac arrest following bariatric surgery, denied to Rolling Stone that she ever saw signs Jackson was abusing children: “Otherwise I would have been the first one out there going, ‘You mother——.’ I’ve got children,” she said.
US Weekly reported that on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Riley said her dad, Danny, would have been “really heartbroken” while reading the news of claims involving her famous stepfather. “I would imagine he said all kinds of things to my mom that we didn’t know about.”
The Daisy Jones & the Six actress went on to explain that she and her brother Benjamin, who died by suicide in 2020, “didn’t know about any allegations” because Presley and Danny made a conscious decision never to fight in front of them.
As for the true nature of her mother and Jackson’s relationship? “The one thing I know is that they were in love and that their love for one another was genuine. I was there and I remember,” Riley insisted of the pair’s time together. “Everything else, I don’t know, because I wasn’t there for [it].”
The “Thriller” singer died at 50 in June 2009 from an overdose of propofol.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis, you can dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.