Sarah Ferguson has paid tribute to her friend Lisa Marie Presley using an iconic line from the Queen that “grief is the price that we pay for love” as she addressed mourners outside the famous estate of Graceland.
The Duchess of York said it was a “great honour”, as she stood delivering a speech today in memory of Elvis‘s only child outside the Presley family home in Memphis,Tennessee.
The 63-year-old told a packed audience how she and Lise Marie knew each other by the endearing nickname “sissy” and that she had been with some people in the crowd “all their lives”.
Paying tribute Sarah said: “Sissy, this is for you, with affection. My late mother-in-law used to say that nothing can be said, can take away the anguish and the pain of these moments, because ‘grief is the price that we pay for love’, and how right she was.”
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The Duchess of York and the daughter of rock n roll royalty are understood to have become friends when they met in 2009 in the US, and Lisa Marie later attended the Duchess’ 50th birthday party in London at the Lanesborough hotel in the same year.
Lisa Marie also stayed at the duchess’s villa in Marbella to privately grieve the death of her ex-husband, Michael Jackson.
On her Instagram page last week the Duchess of York posted a tribute to Lisa Marie alongside an image of the pair smiling cheek-to-cheek to the camera. She wrote:
“I say hello to you everyday and I love you my sissy and I will continue to say hello to you everyday. You were my sissy, an amazing mother to Ben, Riley, Harper and Finley and a superbly loving daughter to Priscilla.
“You have been my devoted friend for many years and I am here for your family to support and love them. I am deeply saddened my sissy, you are in my heart.”
Hundreds of people gathered on the front lawn of Graceland on a gray, chilly Sunday morning in Memphis to mourn the death and remember the life of Lisa Marie Presley, who died earlier this month.
Some mourners held flowers as they waited for the service to begin under the tall trees on the lawn of Graceland, the home where Lisa Marie lived as a child with her father, Elvis Presley. The mansion, which Lisa Marie Presley owned, has been turned into a museum and tourist attraction that hundreds of thousands of fans visit each year to celebrate the life and music of Elvis, who died in 1977.
The property in south Memphis was a place of sadness and somber memories on Sunday. Presley, a 54-year-old singer-songwriter dedicated to her father’s legacy, died Jan. 12, hours after being hospitalized for a medical emergency.
“We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude for the love, compassion and support you have shown our family during this difficult time,” said a message from the Presley family written on the program for the service. “We will always be grateful.”
Among those expected to speak or sing during the service were Lisa Marie Presley’s mother, actress Priscilla Presley; her daughter, actress Riley Keough; Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York; and singers Billy Corgan, Alanis Morissette and Axl Rose.
After the service, mourners will make a procession through Graceland’s Meditation Garden, where she is being laid to rest.