Tina Turner spent decades in the spotlight, and she made the most of it, earning a stunning eight
Grammys. Now, she's no longer performing, taking a well-deserved retirement. But her
story is still one to know. Here's what you need to know about her journey over the years.
Tina Turner was born in 1939 as Anna Mae Bullock. She was raised in the tiny town of Nutbush,
Tennessee. As she wrote in her book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for
Good, she spent her childhood running around her family farm's cotton fields.
From very early on, Turner felt unwanted. She told Rolling Stone,
"It was just a fact that my parents didn't care that much for me. See,
my mother didn't want me in the first place."
Her family wasn't destitute, but they also weren't
well off. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Turner explained,
"We had food on the table. We just didn't have fancy things, like bicycles."
When her parents relocated to Knoxville for work,
Turner moved in with her father's mother. She said,
"She was strict — the kind who starched and ironed dresses."
For the adventurous Turner, life with her grandmother was
"miserable." Then, Turner experienced another blow when her parents separated,
which led to bullying at school. She recalled,
"I got teased, and it interfered with my learning."
Singing was always a part of Turner's life. She told Oprah Winfrey that she sang "at church
and at picnics," like many other children. In her book Happiness Becomes You, Turner wrote,
"When I finally got old enough to join the [church] choir, that was my sweet spot."
She was around 8 when she joined the choir. As she recalled, she was the youngest singer,
but she still, quote, "had the biggest voice in the choir."
In an interview with Harvard Business Review,
Turner explained that she didn't initially consider a career in music. Instead,
her family thought she might become a nurse or a teacher. Turner said,
"In my heart of hearts, I knew those paths wouldn't be mine."
Things got a little brighter for Tina Turner in high school,
when she first experienced love – with a boy named Harry. She told Oprah Winfrey,
"I think when you haven't had that much love at home, and then you find someone you love,
everything comes out."
For Turner, the high school romance was everything she could have hoped for. She recalled,
"He was the most good-looking guy. Everything was in the right place — his eyes, his nose,
his mouth. He was a basketball star."
When her grandmother found out about the intimate relationship,
Turner was forbidden from dating Harry. It broke her heart. She said,
"Harry would have been the one."
Of course, things turned out differently.
When she bumped into Harry's son years later, Turner recalled that she thought,
"My God, that must have been from another lifetime."
Tina Turner didn't consider becoming a professional in the music industry
until she met Ike Turner. As she told Oprah Winfrey in an interview,
she was 17 when she, her mother, and her sister moved to St. Louis. It was
there that she and her sister went to see Ike in concert. Tina Turner said,
"His music charged me. I was never attracted to him, but I wanted to sing with his band."
She met Ike, and when she finally had the chance to sing for him, he said,
"Girl, I didn't know you could sing!"
Ike then essentially gave her a full makeover:
buying her new clothes, getting her hair done, and getting her teeth fixed.
The two became incredibly close — "like brother and sister," as Tina said. The pair confided
in each other. This was the beginning of the relationship that would kick start her career,
but it eventually became a harmful situation that was almost impossible for Tina to escape.
After Ike Turner gave her a complete makeover,
Anna Mae Bullock became Tina Turner, and the couple became the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
"if I ran away, Tina was his name. It was patent,
as you call it." "So he could own you." "So he could own me."
Their R&B song "A Fool in Love" was a hit on the pop charts. The pair married in 1962,
and they continued to make music. They went on to have a series of top 10 R&B hits,
but it wasn't until their 1971 cover of "Proud Mary" that they really hit the mainstream.
Their musical act was hugely successful. But, as The Guardian noted, Tina was never free to
be her own artist within the group, with Ike closely controlling her public persona. And in
the midst of global fame and success, Tina Turner was dealing with horrific abuse behind the scenes.
For the entirety of Tina Turner's marriage to Ike,
she suffered terrible physical abuse. As she told Oprah Winfrey, it began shortly after they
recorded their first song, "A Fool in Love." When she tried to leave then, she recalled,
"That was the first time I really got a beating from Ike."
The abuse went on for a decade and a half. Tina told Rolling
Stone that she was terrified to leave and didn't know where to go, saying,
"It was a thoroughly unhappy situation I was in, but I was too far gone."
In her book My Love Story, Tina details how the horrific violence
led to her attempting to take her own life. She took dozens of sleeping pills. She wrote,
"He broke my jaw. And I couldn't remember what it was like not to have a black eye."
In 1976, she finally decided to leave.
"I had no money. I had no place to go.
But I just took a chance. I said, 'The way out is through the door.'"
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse,
call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224.
You can also find more information, resources, and support at www.thehotline.org.
Turner wrote in her book Happiness Becomes You that in the mid-70s she was "often distraught
and exhausted from the abuse." She found some respite in Buddhism. She recalled,
"One day, our sound engineer said something different to me. 'Tina,
you should try chanting. It will help you change your life.'"
And it turns out it did. She wrote,
"It marked the beginning of a new life for me in more ways than I could have imagined."
Buddhist chanting helped Turner feel stronger and more in tune with her life. Turner thinks that
the strength she found from her chanting is what made it possible for her to escape domestic abuse.
"I need my refrigerator. I need the clothing on my back. I need
shelter, and chanting takes care of that spiritual side."
After leaving Ike, Tina Turner was finally free to pursue the career that she wanted.
In an interview on Ann Delisi's Essential Music, she explained that, even though she
left her marriage with no money, she left with something else: life lessons. She explained,
"I learned how to survive with Ike. I learned how to perform.
I learned how to cover songs, and work without a record."
Forbes notes that she first performed on the Las Vegas cabaret circuit to make ends meet.
Then, Turner joined forces with talent manager Roger Davies. Davies set up a three-night run
in New York at the Ritz. After the sold-out run, it was clear that Turner had a big future as a
solo artist. Meeting Davies helped Turner find her footing and launch a new career.
Tina Turner's first solo album, Private Dancer, was released in 1984, when she was 45.
The album catapulted her to international stardom as a solo artist and marked the
beginning of a brand new, much happier life and career. She told Larry King in 1997,
"Private Dancer was the beginning of my success in England, and basically Europe
has been very supportive of my music." "More than America?" "Yes. Yes, hugely."
Turner's song "What's Love Got to Do With It" reached No. 1 on the charts and
won Grammys for both Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
In the years that followed, she released more hit albums and performed at huge venues.
Soon, she had become known around the world as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll."
Tina Turner frequently found herself coming up against systemic racism. In a 2000 interview on
60 Minutes II, Turner explained that she had never let racism bother her,
noting that she didn't care if she had to enter through a back door. She added,
"I've never bothered about my color." "If the whole world was like that,
maybe there would be more harmony and love."
Turner told Harvard Business Review that Buddhism helped keep her going, even when things got tough.
"When I started as a solo artist, I was a female Black singer in my forties with no money
and few prospects for gigs. Still, I kept a 'never give up' spirit."
Buddhism also helped her to remain positive in the face of discrimination. She said,
"Part of my spiritual practice is to 'change poison into medicine.' The force
of my positivity pushed all the discriminatory 'isms' standing in my way right out the window."
As her professional success continued to grow, Tina Turner also started enjoying
an ever-improving personal life. Turner started dating German businessman Erwin
Bach in 1986. At the time, he was working for her record company,
and he'd been sent to meet her at the airport in Germany. She told People,
"I instantly felt an emotional connection."
Even though she felt nervous about the prospect of new love,
she explained that she "made it a priority to get to know Erwin." Eventually,
the relationship would become what Turner called her "one true marriage."
In 1995, the pair moved to Zurich, Switzerland. In 2013,
Turner became a Swiss citizen. She told Blick,
"I am very happy in Switzerland and I feel at home here. [...] I could not
imagine a better place to live."
Tina Turner finally decided to retire from performing in 2009. As the singer explained
on The Jonathan Ross Show, she was simply ready to spend more time at home. She said,
"You know, I was always away from home, always away from home."
She went on to say that spending so much time on tour meant she had
no time to do domestic things like shopping and decorating. She said,
"Always airplanes, buses, cars,
trains. And I just really got tired of partying every night, every year."
In 2019, ten years after her retirement, Turner couldn't have been happier. As she told The New
York Times, that she didn't sing, dance or dress up, and having experienced a full and long career,
she didn't miss it, either. She told Harvard Business Review,
"My retirement has given me more time to relax and reflect."
After retiring from singing, Tina Turner experienced a series of health scares.
She overcame both a stroke and a bout with intestinal cancer. As she told Harvard Business
Review, she tried to let these negative experiences have a positive impact, saying,
"I choose to be hopeful and to honor each experience in my life,
negative and positive, as a chance to increase my wisdom, courage, and compassion."
As Turner told The Guardian, her Buddhist practice helped her face down her health issues:
"I summoned up my inner lion and overcame each health problem that came along. Illness has
given me a greater appreciation for health and reminds me to enjoy each day to its fullest."
Tina Turner's eldest son, Craig Turner, was 59 when he was found dead from a self-inflicted
gunshot wound in his home in 2018, as reported by People. His death was a huge shock for Tina,
who had no idea he was struggling with his mental health. As she told BBC News, Craig had fallen in
love and was planning on introducing his new girlfriend to his mother. Tina said,
"I still don't know what took him to the edge, because at that stage he
had said to me that he had never met a woman that he felt that way about."
Tina posted a statement on Instagram when she spread his ashes. She wrote,
"My saddest moment as a mother. [...] I said my final goodbye to my son,
Craig Raymond Turner, when I gathered with family and friends to scatter his ashes off the coast of
California. He was fifty-nine when he died so tragically, but he will always be my baby."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.