The violence of her first husband Ike, the love for Erwin, the tragic death of her children: the stormy life of Tina Turner

Tina Turner, who died yesterday at the age of 83 after a long illness, had a private life that has summed up at least two of them, between dramas and rebirths. Little Ann, so they called her at the beginning because her real name is Anna Mae Bullock, as soon as she was seventeen she met the musician Ike Turner. It immediately began a double partnership: artistic and amorous. Tina at the time she was already Craig’s mom, owned by saxophonist Raymond Hill. When in 1962 she married Ike in a frugal ceremony in Tijuana, Mexico, the musician adopted Graig. The following year the singer gave birth to hers second son, Ronnie. Then the couple he adopted Ike Junior and Michael.

Tina and Ike, in the sixties, were the most famous couple in rock. But behind the facade, married life was hell. Ike drank, took drugs, beat Tina up. “She threw hot coffee in my face, giving me third-degree burns. He used my nose like a punching bag so many times that I could feel the blood rushing down my throat when I sang. He broke my jaw. And I couldn’t remember what it was like not to have a black eye,” Tina said in her 2018 biography. My Love Story. Revealing that to escape the violence of her husband (who died of an overdose in 2007) she attempted suicide: «I thought that death was the only way out. One evening I took fifty sleeping pills. Luckily I woke up. I was miserable, but I had overcome the darkness. I was destined to survive».

In 1976, after a concert in Dallas, returning to the hotel Ike butchered her in the street. The next morning she put on dark glasses to hide the wounds and she sneaked off with only 36 cents in her wallet. She found the courage to leave him because «I lived a life of death». It’s at almost forty years old he started over playing in bars and in suburban places. In short he became a planetary star.

In 1985 love also arrived. Tina met the German composer Erwin Bach. She was 46, he was 30. But the age difference didn’t cause the rock lioness any inhibitions: «One evening when we were sitting together, at yet another business dinner, I said to myself: ‘I don’t care. Now I’m asking him.” I looked at him – he looked so good in his Lacoste shirt, jeans and loafers without socks – and whispered: “Erwin, when you come to America I want you to make love to me.” He turned his head slowly and looked at me as if he couldn’t believe his ears. I couldn’t believe I had actually said those words either! His first thought was, “But these California girls are really uninhibited.” But I wasn’t like that. I hardly recognized myself.”

In 1989, when the relationship had already lasted for three years, Erwin Bach asked Tina to marry him. She took her time: 24 years… The wedding came in 2017 in the setting of their home in Kusnacht, on Lake Lugano, furnished with 70,000 roses and orchids, in the presence of friends from all over the world. The bride, in a yellow dress, was 73 years old. The groom 57. However, the joy did not last long because serious health problems arose for Tina: first a stroke, then a tumor in the intestineIn the end severe renal insufficiency which put her in front of the prospect of dialysis. The “lioness of rock” did not want to live “attached to a machine”. And her husband gave her the greatest gift of hers. He gave her a kidney. «It saved my life. Since then we have been even more united». The two, together for over thirty years, have always loved each other like the first day. Just a few years ago, the singer had revealed on Instagram that her husband still wrote her letters calling her “my love”.

In 2018, however, another drama came in Turner’s life: her 59-year-old son Craig committed suicide by shooting himself in his Los Angeles office. «I thought about taking my own life too», the queen of rock later confessed when speaking of the death of her «child». Then, in 2022, yet another setback: the premature loss of another son, Ronnie, who died at the age of 62 from a tumor she had been fighting for years. Tina Turner even then, as always, found the strength to carry on. As always, «Simply the best».

Music legend Tina Turner has died. She was 83 years old

-The tribute of the stars to Tina Turner: “What a life, what a career”

Graig Turner, Tina Turner’s eldest son, committed suicide