When celebrity deaths make an impact (and don’t)

I will admit that celebrity deaths often don’t affect me in the same way they do for most people.

Indeed, I cried the night John Lennon was killed, and the day Princess Diana died after being chased by a photographer, thinking something was terribly wrong with our world. I remember

But they were the exception. Usually when someone young and famous dies, I often feel a strange mix of sympathy and disgust, especially when it’s due to my own rotten decisions.

For example, every time I heard someone say, “I’m so sorry about Whitney Houston, the world has lost such a great talent,” I responded with the following words: An 8-year-old girl lost her mother because her mother made a terrible decision. The rest of the world will probably be fine. “

Or if someone said, “If Amy Winehouse didn’t die at 27,” I would say, “She probably would have died at 28 if she hadn’t completely changed her lifestyle.”

Admittedly, I don’t often agree with such opinions. On second thought, I wish I had shown a little more empathy. I can’t help but wonder: Why do we put these people on such a high pedestal when there are many, perhaps more honorable, closer to our own lives?

I think that’s why I’m sitting here wondering why the death of Lisa Marie Presley hit me so hard.

When I heard that Lisa Marie had a cardiac arrest on Thursday afternoon and was on life support, and when I learned that her mother had arrived at the hospital and had died hours later, I was bigger. Affected. More than any celebrity death you can think of in the last few years.

but why? She wasn’t changing the world, starting trends, or recording her hits.

Like many people faced with the pressure of fame, she also made a terrible decision. drug. unsuccessful marriage. She inherited the Presley empire, but at the time of her death, she was reportedly $16 million in debt.

So why did her death affect me in a way that many others didn’t?

First, she was the first “King” only child we ever had. That made her perhaps the most famous celebrity baby in our history. , her father was famous enough for being “daddy”), I can’t imagine not being moved.

But there’s another reason, and I think that’s the biggest reason. Unlike other celebrities who have died so far, I (like many of you) were actually inside her house.

My wife and I toured Elvis’ former home in June 2018. Among other things, not only does Lisa Marie own Graceland (which she didn’t sell to a shady business manager allegedly part of the Presley empire), she actually visits there and sometimes I know you were staying. Public area on the 2nd floor. or Personalized.

and story. For her, Graceland was nothing but her home in her childhood. It’s where she played with toys and rode horses from the stables while her father sang songs with boisterous friends in the living room.

Best of all was the story about Lisa Marie and her namesake plane. (Don’t skip this part if you’re touring Graceland.)

One day, as the story goes, Elvis learns that his daughter (who was only seven years old at the time) has never seen snow. Elvis thought it was terrifying. So he called the pilot, and within an hour Elvis and Lisa Her Marie were on their way from Memphis to Colorado, landing in Denver, which had just been hit by a snowstorm. They went outside, played in the snow for a while, got back on the plane, and got home in time for dinner.

and you think you Do you have a favorite childhood memory?

Being Elvis’ daughter was, as Lisa Marie has said many times, “both a blessing and a curse.” Luckily, the world was always at her fingertips. The curse, of course, was a warped sense of what was real and of all things that came with fame. Endless stress and temptation (aka drugs), with no privacy or the possibility of a ‘normal’ life, often leading to bad decisions and people eager to be in your company, apparently as was the case with Elvis. Surrounded by people, they never dreamed of saying “no” to you.