Pop Icon and Queen of rock and roll Tina Turner dead at 83
Ms. Turner manager announced her death on social media saying, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner. With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly. (© Peter Lindbergh)”
Tina Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock, rose to fame with her ex-husband, Ike Turner. According to report, Turner and Ike met when she was a 16-year-old still in high school, and he was the leader of Kings of Rhythm, one of the first groups to introduce rock n’roll to the world with their song “Rocket 88.”
The report states, the two remained friends from 1957 to 1960, when they began an affair while Ike was still with his live-in girlfriend Lorraine Taylor. In 1960, they recorded their first hit, “A Fool In Love,” and Turner expressed that she didn’t want to continue the relationship. According to her 1986 autobiography, “I, Tina,” Ike responded by hitting her in the head with a wooden shoe stretcher.
But it wasn’t until Turner fled the couple’s hotel room in 1976 and later revealed the reality of their relationship in a bombshell 1981 interview that the world knew about the domestic abuse that was taken place in the marriage. Tina Turner was very open about her life which was made into a movie in in 1993, entitled “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, a title of one of her hit songs. The movie starring Angela Bassett, alongside Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner, her abusive ex-husband. The biopic charts Turner’s early career, up to the point where she leaves Ike and achieves superstardom. Bassett received her first Oscar nomination for the film.
Tina Turner moved to Switzerland in 1995, with her longtime German partner Erwin Bach, 67. In 2013, three months after marrying Bach and receiving her red Swiss passport, Turner relinquished her US citizenship.
It is said that she had suffered ill health in recent years, being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and having a kidney transplant in 2017.
Ms. Turner leaves behind a legacy that includes over 100 million albums sold, 12 Grammy Awards, a 2021 induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, and much more.