Riley Keough is a member of one of the most famous families in the world – so it's not surprising that when it comes to raising her daughter, she has taken an "untraditional" route.
The 35-year-old granddaughter of Elvis Presley shares her two-year-old daughter Tupelo with her husband, Ben Smith-Petersen, and admitted that her "idea" of motherhood completely changed once she had her own family.
Riley appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show on Friday, where they discussed being 'untraditional mothers'.
When Drew – who shares daughters Olive, 12, and Frankie, 10, with her ex-husband Will Kopelman – confessed that Will coming from a "stable family" influenced her decision to have kids with him because it "felt more traditional" than she was, Riley understood her sentiment.
Drew said: "I picked someone to have kids with that I knew came from an incredibly stable family. I got excited by something that I felt was more traditional and then I really beat myself up that I was so untraditional."
"I think that's really common with mothers particularly," Riley responded. "I think that there's an idea of what you're supposed to be as a mother, whereas fathers sort of can do the bare minimum and they’re fine.
© The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean"And I think that when you're a mother, especially if you're an artist or a creative person, those are the things that give you life."
She continued: "When I had my child, I kind of had this idea of what motherhood would be like, that I would be at home wanting to bake cookies all day and sit at home all day. And that was really hard for me, you know.
© The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean"I realized that I need to write and to perform and to do all these other things. And I was really hard on myself for that."
Drew then explained that she panicked when her daughter, Olive, told her she wanted to act because she felt like she needed to make her childhood "normal and full of traditions".
© Getty Images"Mom guilt," Riley stated. "I really relate to this because my life was so wild that I really wanted things like suburbia and cookies, things to be very normal for my kids. And I'm not that kind of person."
Riley welcomed her daughter via surrogacy in August 2022, but her arrival was only revealed during her mother, Lisa Marie Presley's funeral in January 2023.
© Getty ImagesFans first learned Riley had privately welcomed a baby girl when her husband read a eulogy on her behalf at the service held at Graceland.
It read in part: "I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me, the way you loved my brother and my sisters."
© Getty ImagesSpeaking of her surrogacy journey, Riley told Vanity Fair last year: "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 choice for what I had going on physically with the autoimmune stuff."
Riley named her daughter Tupelo Storm Smith-Petersen in honor of her grandfather, Elvis – who was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and her late brother Benjamin Storm Keough, who died of suicide aged 27 in July 2020.
