Turner died in Switzerland, where she had lived since 1995 in a recently acquired $76 million home with husband Erwin Bach.
“Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock n' Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland,” her family said in a statement Wednesday, as reported by Rolling Stone. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”
The singer sold more than 100 million records, earned 12 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1988, she broke a Guinness Record as the highest-paid solo performer. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was a star in Hollywood films such as Mad Max 3.
Before all that, she was Anna Mae Bullock from Tennessee, who met musician Ike Turner when the latter was performing at a club. She gave him her number and asked him to let her sing in his band, but he never called her.
But she wasn't going to wait for the phone to ring. At a later gig, Tina grabbed Ike's microphone during his band's break and belted out a B.B. King song. Ike called back this time.
He helped her perfect her vocals and changed her name to Tina Turner, though he trademarked the name in case she left and he needed to “replace her,” according to biographer Nigel Cawthorne.
The couple married in 1963. Thanks greatly to Tina Turner's electric vocals and onstage panache, eventually they were signed to Phil Spector’s label and climbed the charts with hits such as a definitive cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.”
But Ike had no pride at home. In her autobiography I, Tina, she wrote that Ike was abusive and unfaithful throughout their marriage, which caused her to attempt suicide in 1968.
He was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was heavily addicted to cocaine. But the couple continued touring and in 1976, one stop brought them to Dallas, which played a key role in Turner’s story and in music history as a whole.
As depicted in the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It about Tina Turner’s life, and as Turner described on The Jonathan Ross Show in 1997, on their way to the Statler Hotel in downtown Dallas, the Turners got into an altercation in the car.
While Ike was sleeping in the hotel room, Tina decided to leave him. She had nothing with her but a Mobil credit card and 36 cents.
“I just took a chance, I said, ‘The way out is through the door’ and while he was on one of his sleeping times, I just left the hotel, went out the kitchen way and down to the freeway,” Turner told Ross.
“I walked out without anything and had to make it on my own for my family and everyone, so I just went back to work for myself,” she said. “It was very difficult and dangerous because Ike was a violent person and at that point he was on drugs and very insecure. I had no money. I had no place to go.”
After Turner walked out, she ran across a Dallas highway.
“I didn’t measure the speed of a car," she told the host. "I was running across the freeway and this big truck was coming and it [beeped its horn]. It felt like it was over me and I thought, ‘Well, I won’t try that again.'”
According to data from the United Nations, 47,000 women worldwide were killed by a family member or domestic partner in 2020.
Tina Turner was able to leave her abuser and become the Queen of Rock N’ Roll.
The hit TV show Schitt’s Creek used the Turner hit "The Best" for two pivotal scenes. Beyoncé has long named her as a chief influence and on Wednesday, Erykah Badu posted a photo of Turner to her Instagram with the caption: “Cultural Icon down. Safe journey Anna Mae Bullock. You were HERE.”
She was, simply, the best.
