Brandon Howard says of his late friend in an interview, 'It's a tough thing when you have a lot of pressure with your family and living up to a name and an image.'

• Jul 16, 2020

AceShowbiz - Being born into a famous family can bring a lot of pressure to someone's life, and Benjamin Keough apparently found it hard to bear it any longer. That's what his friend, Brandon Howard, thought when speaking out about his death with https://people.com/music/benjamin-keough-friend-brandon-howard-says-he-struggled-with-pressure-of-family-name/PEOPLE Magazine[u], saying that the struggles of being a famous musical lineage contributed to his decision to take his own life.

"That kind of pressure is definitely a part of what happened," he said to the magazine. "It's a tough thing when you have a lot of pressure with your family and living up to a name and an image. It's a lot of pressure. It's almost like you're pressured into having to be a musician, having to be an actor. It was good for him to go around the world and discover himself and have his own friends. You never know what triggers it. You never know ... It's so random."

Brandon also expressed how much he regretted not being able to be by his late friend's side when he needed it the most, since according to Brandon, Benjamin often dealt with depression. "Sometimes he struggled with depression, which is a serious thing with [the coronavirus pandemic] and everything happening right now and everybody being locked in the house," he noted. "I wish I could have been there."

Benjamin was found dead in his home in Calabasas, California last week. Following an autopsy, it was confirmed that the cause of his death was an intraoral shotgun wound, leading the Los Angeles County Medical Examiners Office to formally classify his passing as suicide.

His mother, Lisa Marie Presley, was naturally heartbroken after learning of his passing. Her manager said in a statement, "She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley. She adored that boy. He was the love of her life."