Oprah Winfrey has joined countless celebrities in remembering the late Tina Turner. In a message on Instagram, Oprah detailed going from “full-on groupie” to “real friends” in an ever-growing relationship with The Queen of Rock N’ Roll.
I started out as a fan of Tina Turner, then a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then, eventually, we became real friends. She is our forever goddess of rock ‘n’ roll who contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn’t know existed.
Once she claimed her freedom from years of domestic abuse, her life became a clarion call for triumph. I’m grateful for her courage, for showing us what victory looks like wearing Manolo’s and a leather miniskirt. She once shared with me that when her time came to leave this earth, she would not be afraid, but excited and curious. Because she had learned how to LIVE surrounded by her beloved husband, Erwin, and friends. I am a better woman, a better human, because her life touched mine. She was indeed simply the best.
– Oprah
The music world is saddened and shocked by the passing of legendary singer Tina Turner. She was 83 years old.
According to one of Ms. Turner’s representatives, she died in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, after an acute illness.
Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in the rural Tennessee community of Nutbush, Bullock met Ike Turner at 17, when she first began recording with the rock n roll guitarist in St Louis in 1957. The couple eventually got married in Tijuana, Mexico, shortly thereafter.
Turner’s career spanned seven decades, with her origins during the early years of rock and roll, while her evolution which spawned the classic “What’s Love Got To Do With It” in the early 1980s taking her into the era of music television. Dubbed “the Queen of Rock n’ Roll”, Turner won six of her eight Grammy Awards in the 1980s and even drew one of the largest crowds ever for a stage performance in Rio de Janeiro in 1988, attracting 180,000 people.
At that time, Turner had been free from her abusive marriage to guitarist Ike Turner for ten years.
In 1985 Turner met German music executive Erwin Bach who became her long-term partner, and in 1988 she moved to London, beginning a decades-long residency in Europe. She released two studio albums in the 1990s that sold well, especially in Europe, recorded the theme song for the 1995 Bond movie “GoldenEye,” and staged a successful world tour in 2008 and 2009.
After that, she retired from show business. She married Bach, relinquishing her U.S. citizenship and becoming a citizen of Switzerland.
She battled a number of health problems after retiring and in 2018 she faced a family tragedy, when her oldest son, Craig, took his life at age 59 in Los Angeles. Her younger son Ronnie died in December 2022.
“Tina’s story is not one of victimhood but one of incredible triumph,” Janet Jackson wrote about Turner in a Rolling Stone issue that put Turner at No. 63 on a list of the top 100 artists of all time.
Her work, contributions to music, and feminine strength will always be remembered and celebrated for generations to come.
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