riley keough
Riley Keough: The Accidental Empress of Global Grief
By Our Correspondent Who Has Also Inherited Nothing But Debt
LOS ANGELES–ROME–TBILISI—When Riley Keough was informed last year that her late grandfather’s estate had, in a twist worthy of a telenovela penned by Kafka, elevated her to “sole trustee” of Graceland, the world’s most famous shrine to sideburns and prescription-medication chic, she reportedly responded with the same dazed expression worn by most millennials who discover their student-loan interest has reproduced overnight. One can only imagine the internal monologue: “Great, I’m now responsible for a mansion that attracts 600,000 pilgrims annually, all hoping to glimpse a porcelain monkey and the ghost of 1977.”
Internationally, the coronation of Keough—actress, producer, and previously the family member least likely to be asked for a selfie in a Memphis airport—carries the weight of a thousand souvenir snow globes. Graceland isn’t merely a kitsch-coated cash register in Tennessee; it is a sovereign micro-nation of grief capitalism, a Versailles for the polyester era. Every Japanese Elvis impersonator who bows before the Jungle Room, every German couple renewing vows at the Meditation Garden, every Brazilian teenager who sobs into a TCB tote bag is, in effect, acknowledging the new 34-year-old monarch of global melancholy. Long live the queen—may her reign be slightly less Vegas than the last.
The transfer of dynastic power would be comedic if it weren’t so perfectly reflective of our planetary obsession with branding the dead. In the same week that Graceland’s deed wobbled into Keough’s manicured hands, the Vatican unveiled a €50 NFT of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and North Korea’s state Etsy account (probably) floated a commemorative plate featuring Kim Il-sung riding a unicorn. Humanity, it seems, cannot resist monetizing memory. Keough, whose filmography includes a stripper-turned-armed-robber in “American Honey,” now finds herself type-cast as cemetery CFO, curator of a 17,552-square-foot mausoleum where the gift shop accepts contactless payment.
Europeans, who have spent centuries perfecting the art of inheriting crumbling estates and marrying American heiresses to fix the roof, watch with a mixture of sympathy and schadenfreude. “At least our castles come with vineyards,” sniffed a Parisian friend over a €12 glass of Sancerre. “Hers comes with a 24-hour webcam of a grave and a Yelp page.” Meanwhile, in countries where land reform means “grandpa’s farm was collectivized and turned into a tire factory,” the idea of bequeathing an entire mansion to a granddaughter feels as fantastical as Elvis himself resurrecting to sing “Suspicious Minds” on a SpaceX satellite.
Yet Keough’s predicament is oddly universal. From Lagos to Lima, millennials are discovering that inheritance now equals liability: ancestral apartments in Warsaw that require astronomical renovation fees, family olive groves in Lebanon squatted by distant cousins with better lawyers, or, in Keough’s case, a pilgrimage site that needs a new roof and probably an exorcist. The global middle class, raised on Disney+ and food-delivery apps, is learning that history is heavy, damp, and smells faintly of fried peanut butter.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Keough could lean into the absurdity, appointing Lana Del Rey as court troubadour and hosting Met Gala funerals. She could offload the property to a consortium of Saudi investors who promise to add the world’s first roller-coaster through a meditation garden. Or she could simply lock the gates, let the jungle reclaim the Jungle Room, and allow Graceland to become a modern Angkor Wat of sequined jumpsuits—proof that all empires, even those built on blue suede shoes, eventually crumble into vine-covered photo ops.
Whatever she chooses, the planet will watch, swipe, and probably purchase the commemorative refrigerator magnet. Because if there’s one thing our species agrees on—from Tokyo taxi drivers to Tuscan winemakers—it’s that nothing greases the global economy quite like death, nostalgia, and a catchy chorus in 4/4 time.
