Music icon Tina Turner passed away at 83 in her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland. Her representative confirmed that she died peacefully after a long illness. Throughout her life, Turner experienced remarkable success, selling over 100 million records worldwide and receiving accolades such as a Kennedy Center Honor and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

However, she also faced profound challenges, including an abusive relationship with her ex-husband Ike Turner, attempting suicide, the deaths of two of her sons, and a near-fatal experience with kidney failure. Despite these hardships, Tina Turner remained a household name, and her timeless songs like What’s Love Got to Do With It and Proud Mary continue to resonate with audiences. She released nine studio albums, won multiple Grammy Awards, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

Rolling Stone History

Tina became the first woman to appear on the cover of the famed music magazine. She graced the cover for the Nov. 23, 1967 issue.

Ike and Tina – the Abusive Marriage

Ike and Tina first met in 1956 when he was 25 years old, and she was just 17 before she graduated from Sumner High School in St. Louis as Anna Mae Bullock in 1958. According to Tina, it didn’t take long before their relationship turned romantic—or abusive. In a previous interview with Spin magazine, Ike said, “Yeah, I hit her, but I didn’t hit her more than the average guy beats his wife… if she says I abused her, maybe I did.”

Tina wrote her first autobiography, I, Tina, in 1986, but she shared even more dramatic details in her memoir, My Love Story, released in October 2018. In the book, she revealed she once tried to kill herself in an attempt to escape their tumultuous relationship.

“First, he was verbally abusive. Then, he picked up a wooden shoe stretcher. Ike knew what he was doing. If you play guitar, you never use your fists in a fight. He used the shoe stretcher to strike me in the head—always the head,” Tina claimed in her memoir. “I was so shocked I started to cry. Ike ordered me to get on the bed. I hated him at that moment. The very last thing I wanted to do was make love, if you could call it that. When he finished, I laid there with a swollen head, thinking, ‘You’re pregnant, and you have no place to go. You really have gotten yourself into something now.’”

Tina couldn’t take it anymore. She finally split from Ike in 1976 and they divorced in 1978. Their tumultuous relationship was at the centre of the 1993 film, What’s Love Got to Do With It, and the biographical musical, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, which opened on London’s West End earlier this year.

Husband-and-wife R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner pose for a portrait in 1972

The Do-over

Tina, 46, met German music executive Erwin Bach, 30, at Düsseldorf Airport in 1986. They went on to date for 23 years before tying the knot in July 2013, when Tina was 73. Tina shared her first reaction to seeing Erwin in the 2021 HBO documentary, Tina. She also shared why their relationship thrived: they granted each other freedom and space to be individuals while they are a couple. Erwin showed Tina that true love doesn’t require the dimming of her light.

Tina and her husband, Erwin Bach

Retirement at 69

Tina Turner was tired of singing and making everyone happy, so she decided to go to the U.S. for the Broadway premiere of Tina – The Tina Turner Musical. “I was just tired of singing and making everybody happy,” she told an outlet. “That’s all I’d ever done in my life.” She had already written her memoirs, and her story was told in the 1993 biopic, What’s Love Got to Do With It, with her character portrayed by veteran Hollywood actor, Angela Bassett.

 

Erwin Donated His Kidney Amidst Her Health Struggles

Tina suffered a stroke in 2013, just weeks after she married Erwin. She was determined to find out what was causing the pain in her chest and was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016. When doctors told her her kidneys were failing, Tina resigned to the idea that her time had come. Erwin swooped in just in time to save her life. Tina wrote in My Love Story that she was “shocked” Erwin would give up one of his kidneys.

Tina is survived by her adopted sons, Michael and Ike Jr.

Tina Turner and Lionel Richie pose with a total of five awards between them, at the Grammy Awards in 1985

One of Erwin’s love letters to Tina

Kehindé Fagbule
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Self-identifies as a middle child between millennials and the gen Z, began writing as a 14 year-old. Born and raised in Lagos where he would go on to obtain a degree in the University of Lagos, he mainly draws inspiration from societal issues and the ills within. His "live and let live" mantra shapes his thought process as he writes about lifestyle from a place of empathy and emotional intelligence. When he is not writing, he is very invested in football and sociopolitical commentary on social media.