Riley Keough Reveals Her Daughter's Name and Gets Candid About Surrogacy and Parenting
After a year since welcoming her daughter to the world, which she had via surrogacy, Riley Keough finally reveals her baby's name.
Riley Keough has finally revealed her daughter's name and the special meaning behind it.
"This is Tupelo [Storm Smith-Petersen]," she said in a recent interview with Vanity Fair. The first name holds much significance as it is the Mississippi city that her late grandfather Elvis Presley was born in.
"It’s funny because we picked her name before the Elvis movie,” Keough told Vanity Fair. “I was like, ‘This is great because it’s not really a well-known word or name in relation to my family—it’s not like Memphis or something.’ Then when the Elvis movie came out, it was like, Tupelo this and Tupelo that. I was like, ‘Oh, no.’ But it’s fine."
Tupelo was born in August 2022 via surrogacy. Speaking on the surrogacy experience, Keough says, "I think it's a very cool, selfless, and incredible act that these women do to help other people. I can carry children, but it felt like the best for what I had going on physically with the autoimmune stuff."
The "autoimmune stuff" in question refers to Keough's ongoing battle with Lyme disease — a bacterial illness that is transmitted through the bites of infected ticks.
"I used this little break that I have to come and try and see if I can alleviate it a bit, " she said in regard to alleviating the pain caused by the disease. "It's a holistic treatment center and offers all kinds of things that you can't really do in America yet, like cleaning your blood."
Further in the interview, it's mentioned that Keough and her husband Ben Smith-Petersen first revealed they had a daughter at the funeral of Keough's late mother, Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January of this year. Smith-Petersen read the eulogy on behalf of Keough since she was too overcome with emotion to deliver it.
The eulogy in part read, "I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me, the way you loved my brother and my sisters. Thank you for giving me strength, my heart, my empathy, my courage, my sense of humor, my manners, my temper, my wildness, my tenacity. I’m a product of your heart."
Opening up about parenting, Keough said, "I don't think you can ever be a perfect parent, but I would like to be the best mom for her that I can be. That's...very important to me."
