(CNN) — Rock and soul singer Tina Turner has died at the age of 83. From humble beginnings, Turner overcame an abusive marriage to become one of the most popular female artists of all time.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner. With her music and boundless passion for life, she captivated millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us his greatest work: his music. Our sincere sympathy to his family. Tina, we will miss you so much,” the statement posted on her verified Facebook account read.
CNN has reached out to Turner’s representatives for further comment.
Fascinating live performer, Turner had a string of R&B hits in the 1960s and early 1970s alongside her domineering and violent husband Ike Turner before she left him, fleeing her Dallas hotel room on 36 cents.
His solo career faltered for years before scoring a stunning comeback in 1984 with his multi-platinum album “Private Dancer” and his No. 1 hit, “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
Singer Tina Turner presents her single “GoldenEye” for the James Bond film of the same name, on November 22, 1995, in Paris, France. (Credit: JACQUES DEMARTHON/AFP via Getty Images)
In no time, Turner became a global superstar, leading MTV with her flashy wigs, short skirts and famously long legs strutting across concert stages in heels.
Her talent earned her worldwide recognition as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” while her resilience made her a hero to battered women everywhere. When she sang about pain and anguish in her husky voice every word rang true.
“For a long time I felt like I was trapped, with no way out of the unhealthy situation I found myself in,” she told the Harvard Business Review in 2021. “But then I had a series of encounters with different people who encouraged me… And once I was able to seeing myself clearly, I began to change, opening the way to confidence and courage. It took me a few years, but I was finally able to stand up for my life and start over.”
“He knew I had the potential to be a star”
She was born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939 to a family of poor sharecroppers near Nutbush, Tennessee, a rural community north of Memphis later made famous in her autobiographical song, “Nutbush City Limits.” She lived her first years with her grandmother, after her parents separated from her.
“We were not in poverty. We had food on the table. We just didn’t have fancy things, like bicycles,” Turner said in a 2005 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“We were church people, so at Easter we made up. I was very innocent and didn’t know much else. I knew radio—BB King, country and western,” Turner said. “But that’s it. I didn’t know anything about being a star until the white guys let us come down and watch their TV once a week.”
Following the death of her grandmother in the 1950s, Turner and her sister Ruby moved to St. Louis, Missouri to live with their mother.
It was in St. Louis that he began visiting some of the local clubs and met musician Ike Turner, whose band, Kings of Rhythm, was popular in the area. He recruited her at age 17 to join her band as a singer.
Musician Ike Turner (1931 – 2007) with Tina Turner at Heathrow airport in London, United Kingdom, on October 27, 1975. (Credit: Frederick R. Bunt/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“Ike had to come to the house and ask ‘Ma’ if it was okay for me to sing with him. He knew that he had the potential to be a star. We were close, like brother and sister,” Turner told Winfrey. “On his nights off, we would drive around town and he would tell me about his life, his dreams. He told me that when he was young, people found him unattractive. That really hurt him. I felt bad for him. I thought, ‘I’ll never hurt you, Ike.’ And he meant it. He was very nice to me then, but I also got to see the other side of him.”
She began performing as Tina Turner, and in 1960, they formed the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Their relationship evolved and her son Ronnie was born that same year. They married in 1962 and raised four children, including two sons from Ike’s previous relationships and Tina’s son Craig, also from a previous relationship.
a brutal union
As Turner stated in his autobiography and in various interviews, the physical abuse began almost at the beginning of the relationship.
Ike Turner would fly into a rage at the slightest provocation, she said, adding that he would hit her with anything available: hangers, phones, a wooden shoebox, his fists. Often, he said, he would even hit her before going on stage.
“He would hit me in the ribs and then he would always try to give me a black eye. I wanted the abuse of her to be seen. That was the embarrassing part,” Turner told Winfrey.
Tina sang most of her songs with the help of female backing vocalists, while her husband remained in the background, usually on guitar. Their musical partnership produced a string of R&B hits, including “A Fool In Love,” “Nutbush City Limits,” and “Proud Mary,” their 1971 version of a Creedence Clearwater Revival song, which reached No. 4 on the charts. hits and won a Grammy.
But offstage, their marriage remained tumultuous, fueled in part by Ike Turner’s cocaine addiction.
“Another night we had a fight in the dressing room, and when I went on stage, my face was swollen,” he told Winfrey. “I think I broke my nose because blood was running out of my mouth when I sang. Before, I had been able to hide under makeup. But you can’t hide the swelling.”
Tina was with Ike Turner for over a decade, terrified of his temper but determined not to abandon him like others had.
Until things came to a head in July 1976 when they flew to Dallas for a show. Turner wrote in her book that after the plane flight, her husband began to beat her in a car on the way to the hotel. While he was sleeping, she came out of her room with just a Mobil credit card and 36 cents.
Tina Turner at the Brighton Center in Brighton, UK, on March 11, 1985. (Credit: John Rogers/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
He fled across a busy highway to a motel, where a sympathetic clerk saw his bloody face and gave him a room. She then called a lawyer she knew, who arranged for a friend of hers to pick her up and put her on a plane back to Los Angeles.
“After my plane landed in California, my heart was terrified. I was afraid that Ike was there because the other time he had run away, he tracked me down on a bus…” she told Oprah. “So when I got off that plane, I ran like crazy. I told myself, ‘If he’s here, I’m going to yell for the police. And he had a sentence in my head: ‘I will die before I return’ ”.
His rise to international fame
By then, a friend had introduced Turner to Buddhism and her practice of chanting, to which she credits the strength to leave her husband. Raised Baptist, Turner embraced Buddhism in middle age and said its teachings changed her life.
Tina and Ike formally divorced in 1978 after a lengthy legal battle. She wrote in her book that he kept most of the earnings and assets they had earned as a couple, while she took care of his four children. The divorce nearly ruined her financially, and for the next several years Turner performed on television specials and in Las Vegas as he struggled to rebuild her career.
Her comeback gained momentum after she hired Australian manager Roger Davies in 1979. Rod Stewart invited her to perform “Hot Legs” with him on “Saturday Night Live” two years later and, in 1983, his version of “Let’s Stay Together.” by Al Green became a hit in England.
Then came “Private Dancer,” which spawned three Top 10 hits, won her three Grammy Awards, and ultimately sold more than 10 million copies. Though she initially disliked the song and had to be coaxed into recording it, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” made her, at 44, the oldest female artist to achieve a number one hit.
In 1985, at the height of her career, Tina was featured in the charity single “We Are the World,” performed with Mick Jagger at the historic Live Aid concerts, and co-starred in Mel Gibson’s post-apocalyptic film “Mad Max. Beyond Thunderdome,” achieving another hit with “We Don’t Need Another Hero”, a song from the film.
The following year, Turner recounted her early career and abusive marriage in a best-selling memoir, “I, Tina,” which was adapted into a hit 1993 film called “What’s Love Got To Do With It” and starring Angela Bassett.
Hit albums, singles and sold-out concerts continued into the late ’80s and ’90s, and Turner continued to put on an impressive live show well into the new millennium, especially in England.
Turner moved to Switzerland in the 1990s with her German boyfriend Erwin Bach, an executive at her record company. She was 16 years younger. The couple married in 2013 after a 27-year romantic relationship, and in 2022 she bought a $76 million property on Lake Zurich.
“I pay taxes here (in the US). My family is here,” he told CNN’s Larry King in 1997. “I left the United States because my (biggest) success was in another country and my boyfriend was in another country. Europe has been a great support for my music”.
Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and she was inducted as a solo artist in 2021. “Tina,” a musical based on her life story, opened on Broadway in 2018.
Turner was preceded in death by his two sons, Craig, who died in 2018, and Ronnie, who died in 2022.
“Some of the happiest moments of my life were the birth of my beautiful babies, Craig and Ronnie, and the marriage to my partner and soul mate, Erwin Bach,” she told NBC’s Today Show in 2021.
Professionally, he said, his happiest moments were performing live.
“One of my first career goals was to become the first black woman to sell out stadiums around the world,” she told NBC. “At the time, it seemed impossible. But I never gave up, and I’m very happy that I made that dream come true.
