Tina Turner — the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll who famously fled her abusive ex, Ike Turner, before staging a massive, solo career comeback — has died.
The legendary performer, whose catalog of hits included the rollicking “Proud Mary” and career-changing “Private Dancer,” was 83.
The news was shared on Turner’s Instagram account on Wednesday.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner. With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow,” the statement read. “Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family.
“Tina, we will miss you dearly.”
Tina — who was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2021 — sold more than 100 million records worldwide throughout her career, with songs including the anthemic hit “The Best” and her solo comeback single “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
The much-celebrated music icon — equally known for her inspiring life story of survival as much as her winding career — famously disliked the latter song when her then-manager Roger Davies first showed it to her.
“It was terrible. It was awful,” Turner said about her first impression in her 2021 documentary “Tina.” “I was rock and roll. … This was a pop song.”
Tina agreed to meet with the song’s writer, Terry Britten, who assured her that if she still didn’t like her vocals, they could be changed.
However, Tina said that she put her “heavy vocals” on it and “converted it and made it my own.”
She scored her first and only No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the song, which kicked off her early 1980s career resurgence after she toiled for several years in Las Vegas lounges and elsewhere, performing covers of songs like The Trammps dance hit “Disco Inferno.”
Tina was 44 at the time of her comeback, making her the oldest solo female artist to top the Hot 100 chart.
The song won three Grammys in 1985 and in 2012 was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, giving Tina her third Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
She had 12 total Grammy Awards, including eight competitive awards, three Grammy Hall of Fame awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Tina’s other huge hit, “The Best” — commonly referred to as “Simply The Best” — was first recorded by Bonnie Tyler in 1998.
Tina recorded her own version a year later, asking the songwriter, Holly Knight, to add a bridge to the song and put it in a different key.
She later sang the song in a Pepsi commercial, and the tune continued to resonate in many more commercials after its release.
Throughout her career, Tina collaborated — and solidified longtime friendships with — numerous artists, including David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Bryan Adams and more.
Tina is oft remembered for a sexy, spectacular appearance alongside Jagger at 1985’s Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.
The duo performed a rollicking duet featuring “State of Shock” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll,” during which a shirtless Mick at one point ripped Tina’s miniskirt off — exposing her long, famed legs, in what was the first televised wardrobe malfunction.
Tina retired from music in 2009 after completing her “Tina! 50th Anniversary Tour.”
Tina’s popularity as a live artist was a global one: A sold-out crowd of 180,000 in Rio De Janeiro in 1988 notched a Guinness World Record for Largest Paying Rock Concert Attendance from a Solo Artist, a recognition she held until 1997.
Later in life, Tina faced numerous significant health issues.
They included facing kidney disease — which led to her receiving a kidney donation from her second husband, German music executive Erwin Bach, whom she married in 2013 in a grand ceremony attended by her longtime friend, Oprah Winfrey.
In 2013, Winfrey asked Tina, a Buddhist, what her legacy would be.
“I endured hardship all the way,” the musical legend responded.“If we stay on course, we stay focused. Sever smoking, never drinking, never doing drugs.
“My legacy is that I stayed on course … from the beginning because I believed in something inside of me that told me that it can get better or you can make something better and that I want it better.”
“So my legacy is a person that strived for wanting it better and got it,” she concluded.
In an interview with British Vogue just last month, Tina revealed the advice she would have given her younger self.
“I would tell myself to stay strong and continue wanting more and fighting for it all!” she told the publication.
“It will come, and it will be worth the wait!” she added.
Born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, the Brownsville, Tennessee, native spent much of her childhood picking cotton and singing in a nearby church.
Tina started her career in 1957 as a member of her future husband’s group, Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm. She released her first song, “Boxtop,” under the name Little Ann before coming back as Tina Tuner — a name christened by Ike — in 1960 with “A Fool in Love.”
But her first real taste of success came in the 1960s and ’70s as the duo the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
In her 1986 memoir, “I, Tina: My Life Story” — co-authored by music writer Kurt Loder — she accused Ike of domestic abuse during their marriage. Ike died of a drug overdose in 2007.
“It wasn’t a good life. The good did not balance the bad,” Tina recalled of that time of her life in a 2020 documentary. “I had an abusive life, there’s no other way to tell the story. It’s a reality. It’s a truth. That’s what you’ve got, so you have to accept it.”
Though she would go on to marry Bach, Tina said she suffered PTSD from Ike’s abuse.
“He was cruel because he depended on me,” Tina told Gayle King in 2019 about her first marriage.
“He didn’t like that he had to depend on me. And I didn’t want to start a fight because always a black guy, a broken nose, a busted lip, a rib…”
Tina famously escaped Ike’s abuse in 1976 when — nearly penniless — she fled from her then-husband after he beat her while they were on tour.
She found refuge from a kind hotel manager in Dallas, who gave the bloodied and bruised singer a room without asking for payment.
In their divorce settlement, Tina renounced taking any money or property from Ike and only asked to retain her stage name — a purposeful move that would propel her solo career in the coming decades.
Tina had four children, including a son Craig with saxophonist Raymond Hill while in high school. Craig was adopted by Ike when the couple got married; he died by suicide in 2018.
Tina also adopted two of Ike’s children, Ike Jr. and Michael, from his previous relationship, and she gave birth to their son, Ronnie, in October 1960.
Ronnie died from complications related to late-stage cancer, as well as cardiovascular disease, in 2022.
Tina and Bach had been living in Switzerland for many years before Tina renounced her US citizenship. The couple bought a Swiss “weekend retreat” in January 2022.
In a clip from an interview with the late Larry King in 1997, Tina revealed that one of the main reasons she left the United States was due to her stardom.
“I have left America because my success was in another country and my boyfriend was in another country,” Tina said, pointing to the popularity of “Private Dancer” in the UK as a driving factor. “Basically, Europe has been very supportive of my music.”
The star performer didn’t just record others’ work, either: She is remembered for penning the semi-autobiographical song “Nutbush City Limits,” which recounted a structured, Southern life in a “little old town in Tennessee.”
Tina also crossed over to film work during her career, most notably as the Acid Queen in the 1975 rock opera “Tommy,” as well as the ruler Auntie Entity — opposite Mel Gibson — in 1985’s apocalyptic “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”
In 1983, she also had a cameo in “Last Action Hero,” opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that same year, she released the biographical film adaptation of her memoir titled, “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” which starred Angela Bassett, who was Oscar-nominated for the part.h
Her life story also hit the Great White Way in 2019 with the acclaimed, “towering” Broadway production “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.”
Mattel honored the singer with a Tina Turner Barbie Doll — complete with her signature volumized hairstyle and iconic “What’s Love Got to Do With It” video outfit — in October 2022 upon the song’s 40th anniversary.
In April 2023, Tina told The Sun how she dealt with her famous legs being the subject of constant conversation.
“Sometimes I think I’m as famous for my legs as much as my voice,” she told the outlet.
“I only had my legs on show so much as it made it much easier to dance . . . And then it became part of my style.”
“When I was younger I never felt confident about any part of my body, but with all the attention my legs received, I realized they must be OK!”
