Singer
Tina Turner, whose soul classics and pop hits like The Best and What's
Love Got to Do With It made her a superstar, has died at the age of 83.
Turner had suffered a number of health issues in recent years including cancer, a stroke and kidney failure.
She rose to fame alongside husband Ike in the 1960s with songs including Proud Mary and River Deep, Mountain High.
She divorced the abusive Ike in 1978, and went on to find even greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s.
Dubbed
the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll, Tina Turner was famed for her raunchy and
energetic stage performances and husky, powerful vocals.
She
won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of
Fame in 2021 as a solo artist, having first been inducted alongside Ike
in 1991.
Upon
her solo induction, the Hall of Fame noted how she had "expanded the
once-limited idea of how a Black woman could conquer a stage and be both
a powerhouse and a multidimensional being".
Younger stars who have felt her influence include Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Janelle Monae and Rihanna.
Born
in Tennessee into a sharecropping family, she first found prominence as
one of the backing singers for her husband's band The Kings of Rhythm.
She
soon went to to front the band, and the couple tasted commercial
success with Fool in Love and It's Gonna Work Out Fine, which made the
US charts in the early 60s.
Their
other hits included 1973's Nutbush City Limits, about the small town
where Tina was born. But Ike's physical and emotional abuse was taking
its toll.
It
was he who changed her name from her birth name, Anna Mae Bullock, to
Tina Turner - a decision he took without her knowledge, one example of
his controlling behaviour.
She
recalled the trauma she suffered throughout their relationship in her
2018 memoir, My Love Story, in which she compared sex with the late
musician to "a kind of rape".
"He used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood running down my throat when I sang," she wrote.
After
escaping her abuser, she went on to rebuild her career and become one
of the biggest pop and rock stars of the 80s and 90s, with hits
including Let's Stay Together, Steamy Windows, Private Dancer, James
Bond theme GoldenEye, I Don't Wanna Fight and It Takes Two, a duet with
Rod Stewart.
She
also starred in 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - which featured
another of her smashes, We Don't Need Another Hero - and The Who's 1975
rock opera Tommy as the Acid Queen.
She
found happiness with her second husband, German music executive Erwin
Bac. They began dating in the mid-80s, and got married in 2013.
The
pair lived in Switzerland, with Turner taking Swiss citizenship. He
donated one of his kidneys to her in 2017 after it was discovered she
was suffering from kidney failure.
She
also suffered tragedy with the loss of her eldest son Craig to suicide
in 2018. His father was Turner's former bandmate, Raymond Hill.
Another
son, Ronnie, whose father was Ike Turner, died in 2022. She also had
two adopted sons, Ike Jr and Michael, Ike's children from a previous
relationship.
Tina's
life story spawned a 1993 biopic titled What's Love Got To Do With It,
which earned Angela Bassett an Oscar nomination for playing the star;
and a hit stage musical - aptly titled Tina: The Musical. She was also
the subject of HBO documentary Tina in 2021.
In
an interview with Marie Claire South Africa in 2018, Turner said:
"People think my life has been tough, but I think it's been a wonderful
journey. The older you get, the more you realise it's not what happened,
it's how you deal with it."
