She may be Hollywood royalty, but Riley Keough has made a name for herself beyond her grandfather, Elvis Presley, and beloved late mother, Lisa Marie Presley. The 34-year-old star gained critical acclaim, and a 2024 Golden Globe nomination, for her acting and singing chops in Prime Video's "Daisy Jones & The Six." Offscreen, Keough shares a baby girl with her longtime love, Ben Smith-Petersen.
Smith-Petersen is an actor and stuntman who most recently appeared as a stunt performer in "Barbie." He's also lent his talents to a bevy of action movies, including "Triple Frontier" and "Mad Max: Fury Road." In fact, the Australia native met Keough on the set of the latter film. The pair began dating in 2013 and tied the knot two years later.
More than a decade after falling in love, Smith-Petersen and Keough have weathered a lot together. In 2020, Keough's brother Benjamin Keough passed away. Then, in 2023, Lisa Marie Presley died. Through it all, Smith-Petersen and Keough have evidently found strength in each other — and in their own little brood of three. Their daughter's name is a tribute to Keough's late brother and grandfather.
Read on for everything you need to know about Riley Keough and Ben Smith-Petersen's love story, from their first film together to the touching way in which they're keeping the memory of Lisa Marie Presley alive in their daughter.
Who Is Riley Keough's Husband, Ben Smith-Petersen?
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He may not be the household name that his wife is, but Ben Smith-Petersen is no stranger to the silver screen. The Australian native has been a stunt double and stunt coordinator for major motion pictures such as "The Great Gatsby," "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies," "Suicide Squad," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Triple Frontier" and, most recently, "Barbie." So you can thank him for all of your favorite action-packed scenes.
Stunt-doubling may have been his thing for the past decade, but Smith-Petersen has recently made some moves towards acting. He's set to appear in the indie thriller "The Dead Thing," described as a "neo-realist take on an 'Invisible Man' story and a modern urban legend for the online dating era."
Smith-Petersen has had minor acting roles in movies like "Habit" and "Spark and Light" — in which Keough also starred.
A 'Mad Max' Meet-Cute
Although they appeared in "Spark and Light" separately, the couple didn't officially meet until they were on the set of "Mad Max: Fury Road." Keough was playing one of Immortan Joe's five wives, while Smith-Petersen portrayed a blind musician. At the time, she had a boyfriend, so it wasn't love at first sight. But Keough wrote in an essay published in Vogue Australia that when they met again a year later to do some reshoots, it didn't take long for her to fall.
"We had a couple of drinks, and I remember we had a connection," she wrote in 2022, recalling those first few days they got together in Australia. "He started salsa dancing with me and teaching me because he grew up dancing. It was such a fun night. A few of us went to one of the bays for a swim, and it was really magic.
"We ended up kissing that night, and the next day we went to Camp Cove and got in the water and I hugged him and it felt like I didn't want to be away from him. I just felt so comfortable."
The actress told USA Today in 2016 that she knew he was the one shortly after they got together. "Two weeks into dating him, we were at a gas station and I was like, 'I could see myself having kids with this person.' It was kind of like I knew I was meeting my husband. It was very cool."
The Couple Had Two Very Different Wedding Ceremonies
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Since that magical night in Australia, Keough and Smith-Petersen have been inseparable. They support each other's careers and passions, and are constantly sharing their admiration for each other on social media. Keough even revealed in her Vogue essay that they have matching tattoos. Smith-Petersen took it up a notch by sharing his tattoo of Riley's name across his stomach.
Keough and Smith-Petersen tied the knot in 2015 with not one, but two weddings. Their first was in Nepal, where they were building a school for a local community. They tied the knot again in Napa Valley a few weeks later.
"The families knew we were getting married and they said, 'Let us throw you a Hindu wedding,'" Keough wrote in Vogue. "It was so beautiful and, in some ways, that wedding was a little more intimate and really special. That wedding, I cried. At my bigger wedding, I was a little nervous, I wasn't as present. But it was still equally as amazing.
"Love turns into different things over the years, and I'm excited to see all the different phases it goes through. I'm excited to wake up and be in our house, and have our coffee, and Ben goes for a surf and we're just hanging out when we're older. I'm excited to have kids. Everything is exciting to me, with him. Every day is exciting when you're with your soulmate."
They Welcomed a Baby Girl in 2022
In 2022, Keough and Smith-Petersen welcomed their first child, a daughter named Tupelo Storm. Tupelo is a tribute to Elvis Presley's Mississippi origins, and Storm was the middle name of Keough's late brother.
In a touching moment during Lisa Marie Presley's funeral in 2023, Keough expressed that she hoped to be as loving a mother as Lisa Marie. Smith-Petersen read Keough's remarks on her behalf:
"Thank you for showing me that love is the only thing that matters in this life. I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me, the way you loved my brother and my sisters," read Keough's eulogy. "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."
