Tina Turner's celebrated songs and at times turbulent personal life
have found a place in pop culture — so have a number of myths about the singer.
Here are some of the false things you believe about Tina Turner.
While stage names are not uncommon in music, Tina Turner has been such a staple in the industry
that many people have come to believe her name is actually Tina Turner. However,
Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock to Floyd and Zelma Bullock on November 26, 1939.
Her parents separated in the early 1950s, and young Anna Mae moved in with her grandmother
in Nutbush, Tennessee. During her career, Ike and Tina recorded an album titled Nutbush City
Limits that featured a popular song of the same name. At 16 years old,
she moved to St. Louis, Missouri. In 1956, she met her future husband Ike Turner, who,
at the time, was the guitarist and bandleader of the group Kings of Rhythm. Ike took an
interest in Anna Mae, and soon, the teenager was performing as the lead singer in Ike's band.
Originally, Anna Mae went by "Little Ann" in her first days with the group. However, Ike convinced
Anna Mae to change her stage name to Tina, which she did. With the name change, the band's name
went from the Kings of Rhythm to the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Ike remained the bandleader and
commanding voice in the group, while Tina became the frontwoman and lead singer. During this time,
the two began their romantic relationship. Ike and Tina Turner would go on to marry in 1962.
According to The Second Disc, Phil Spector put so much work and energy in his song with Tina Turner,
"River Deep-Mountain High," that upon its commercial failure in the United States,
he left the music industry for the rest of the 1960s. After all that effort,
one might think that the two remained close, though this was not the case.
By 2007, Spector had gone from one of the most important producers in pop music
during the 20th century to standing trial, and eventually being convicted,
for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. That same year,
Spector spoke out against Tina Turner following the funeral of Ike Turner. Spector slammed Tina's
1986 autobiography, I, Tina, which told of her abusive marriage to Ike Turner, saying,
"I have an ambivalence towards Oprah Winfrey. She made Tina
Turner's book into a bestseller which demonized and vilified Ike.
The book wouldn't have sold 10 books. It was badly written. It was a piece of trash."
Much like Ike, Phil Spector's ex-wife, singer Ronnie Spector,
accused him of being abusive throughout their marriage and professional relationship.
Tina Turner's 1984 comeback album, Private Dancer, was the end of a long journey almost
a decade in the making. The album featured some of the biggest names in music contributing to it,
such as Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, and David Bowie. While many believe that Private Dancer
was Turner's first solo work, AllMusic indicates that the album was her fifth as a solo artist.
Surprisingly, Tina, who came from a blues/soul background and who became known by the honorific
"The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll," gave her take on a different genre in her solo debut. Tina Turns the
Country On! was released in 1974 and saw her give her own spin on country music. The album
did also feature the R&B and pop-rock sound that Turner was accustomed to singing with her husband.
Turner's second solo album, 1975's Acid Queen, was titled after her character in the 1975 film Tommy,
based on the rock opera from The Who. Despite being filled with covers, the album was seen
as a solid foundation for a future solo career. Tommy also featured the couple's last hit song,
"Baby Get It On." Her next two solo efforts, Love Explosion and Rough, were both released in 1978,
the same year she divorced Ike. Neither received the same commercial success as her first two
solo works, and they would be Turner's last studio albums until Private Dancer.
Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin have many similarities: The two broke into stardom
around the same time in the early 1960s. Both had long, successful careers long after people
had counted them out when they hit their 40s, and both are seen as powerful Black female voices in
the music industry. Another point of comparison is that like Aretha Franklin's "Respect,"
Tina Turner's "Proud Mary," arguably her most well-known song, is a cover that she made her own.
While Otis Redding's original version of "Respect" did not garner him much attention
on the pop charts, Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" was a hit. It was actually a bigger
hit than Ike and Tina's version. CCR's original version peaked at Number 2 on Billboard's Hot 100
charts in March 1969, while Ike and Tina's version peaked at Number 4 in March 1971.
While CCR's version is a classic rock song in a basic C-to-A chord structure, Ike and Tina's
version begins slowly as she states that the band is going to start, quote,
"nice and easy" but finish "nice and rough." After the first verse,
the song explodes into a soulful anthem about a hardworking woman keeping her head high.
While CCR won the chart battle back in the day, the song is firmly remembered as Tina's
own — to the point that people forget that John Fogerty wrote and sang the original.
Abusive relationships can take a great amount of support and care for the victim to recover from,
and even then, this may not be enough. Despite Tina Turner becoming an international solo star
and achieving far greater fame than Ike during their marriage, the octogenarian
"Queen of Rock 'n' Roll" is still dealing with the effects of the abuse she suffered from him.
"It was very difficult and dangerous because Ike was a violent person."
As Bustle reports, following her divorce from Ike and her resurgence as a successful solo artist,
many people believed Turner had moved on. However, as she has expressed to
documentarians Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, this was not the case. Tina told Lindsay and Martin,
"People can't imagine the kind of man he was."
In their 2021 HBO documentary about the famed singer, Lindsay spoke about
why he believed Tina wanted to sit down and tell her story once again, stating,
"We realized that the motivation on Tina's side was that she was having
trouble getting the record industry to disassociate her from Ike."
Ike and Tina, for better or worse, were one of the most iconic musical duos and musical couples
of the second half of the 20th century. This means, despite her solo career and telling the
truth about their relationship, Tina will always have trouble disconnecting from her ex-husband.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, Tina Turner and Mick Jagger first met
each other in 1966, when Ike and Tina toured England with the Rolling Stones.
"What's it like standing with Mick Jagger? Are you kidding? I mean, you are talking about legend."
The two crossed paths over the ensuing years, and at Live Aid 1985, the pair performed two
songs together. Their steamy stage act included Jagger removing his shirt and ripping off Turner's
skirt mid-performance. However, as Turner explained, the pair were just colleagues.
Tina described Jagger and fellow British superstar David Bowie as, quote, "the boys."
"I thought she was great. She is great. She… she is great"
According to Fabiosa,
Turner had this to say about teaching Jagger dance moves while they toured together:
"Mick wanted to dance — and I was a dancer — but he never gave me the credit!
He said his mother taught him how to dance. But we worked with him in the dressing room,
me and the girls, and we taught him how to Pony."
The Rolling Stones were enthusiasts of Black music, with their first albums being filled
with blues and R&B covers. The band's name comes from a popular song by blues legend Muddy Waters.
When asked about Jagger and the other musicians from Great Britain admiring her work,
Turner had this to say:
"All those English guys felt I could sing. They felt there was something to learn from my singing.
My vocals are natural. I hit the note naturally, and they'd go: 'What?! How'd you do that?!"
Outside of her dynamic voice and long legs, Tina Turner's wigs are her most recognizable style.
"I've been doing these wigs for all my life. I've always done my own."
From when she first stepped onstage in the 1950s until she stepped off more than a half-century
later, Turner has rocked wigs like she has rocked concerts. However, as CBS News reports,
these were originally less a style for Turner and more of a confidence enhancer.
She told Gayle King in an interview for CBS Sunday Morning that she was
very insecure when first starting her music career. Turner recalled,
"I had the strange voice most girl singers didn't have. You know, in the beginning,
I didn't. I thought it was kind of ugly because it didn't sound
like Diana Ross [...] But then afterward I thought, 'Yeah, it sounds like the guys.'"
Turner found solace in one area that put her above other performers:
"I was the only one that danced and I remember Little Richard said,
'Tina dances, you know, it's hard for us to compete with her.'"
Still, this did not keep her from disliking her appearance and turning to wigs and makeup to hide
her true face. When asked if she thought of herself as attractive, she responded,
"I never thought I was. I tried to — that's why the wigs and the makeup,
and the dress. I had to really make myself pretty. I had to work on that."
Many divorces end with both sides obtaining an equal share of money and possessions. This way,
both parties leave on equal terms and are able to continue on with their lives. Tina and Ike
Turner's divorce was less a 50/50 split and more of a 90/10 split, to put it generously,
in Ike's favor. The end came after Tina and her husband had an altercation in Dallas. As she put
it, the 1978 divorce left her walking away with, quote, "36 cents and a gas station credit card."
As Ike had taken the royalties from their almost two decades of work, Tina had to lick her wounds
and retreat in order to plan out her future away from her ex. At first, she had to take menial jobs
in order to feed her children, cleaning houses and living on food stamps while working as a musician.
Turner continued performing at low-profile venues and making guest appearances on other
artists' albums until her big break in 1983. That was the year that Turner's cover of Al Green's
"Let's Stay Together" netted the singer a huge hit. The next year, she released Private Dancer.
The album sold more than 20 million copies and put Tina Turner back in the limelight.
Despite detailed accounts of his abuse of Tina and a popular biopic
putting an image to these stories, Ike Turner continued to work as a successful
musician until his death. As Ebony explained in their tribute piece following his passing,
Ike was not simply one half of the Ike & Tina Revue — he was one of the most
important figures in 20th-century music. At the age of 19, Ike's band recorded the
song "Rocket 88," which became a hit and helped spark the genre of rock 'n' roll.
Little Richard said his song "Good Golly, Miss Molly" was inspired by "Rocket 88."
As a talent scout, Ike discovered Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters,
and he also worked on the early recordings of B.B. King. According to Biography,
throughout the 1980s, Ike's drug use increased as Tina's star rose. The decade ended with
allegations of abuse from his ex-wife and an 18-month prison sentence for drug use.
He was in prison when the Ike & Tina Turner Revue was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
However, Ike's career rebounded post-prison. He recorded more albums and was nominated for
two Grammys, winning one, during the 2000s. Ike Turner's personal demons ultimately led to his
death in December 2007, when he succumbed to a cocaine overdose at 76 years old.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse,
you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.
You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.