Secrets I’ve Never Told
She’s been open about her painful marriage to Ike, but now, from her suicide attempt to her stroke and her sex life, the queen of rock lets it all roll out
By the time Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, the pair behind the 1971 smash hit “Proud Mary” were long divorced. Ike was in prison for cocaine possession. And Tina had rebuilt herself as a solo act whose full-throated vocals were as much her trademark as her show-stopping legs. But the woman dubbed the “Queen of Rock and Roll” by Rolling Stone had long since given up on love. An “unwanted child,” in her words, she endured 16 years of abuse as Ike’s wife. “I never felt loved,” she writes in her raw, candid new memoir, My Love Story, “so I decided it wasn’t important.” The book, excerpted here, plumbs the depths of her nightmarish marriage, first documented in a 1986 memoir, I, Tina, and its 1993 film adaptation, What’s Love Got to Do with It. It also reveals how she changed her mind about love, finding a life partner in music producer Erwin Bach, whom she met when she was 46 – and the health crises that threaten, even now, her happily-ever-after. “You might be thinking, Tina, we know your story,” writes the star, now 78, and living in Switzerland with Erwin, whom she wed in 2013. “But here’s something that might surprise you.”
Born Anna Mae Bullock, Turner was known as “Little Anna Mae” when she was a child singing in stores and at picnics around her Nutbush, Tennessee, home. Later, as a teen in St. Louis, she first laid eyes on the musician who would make her a star.
Ike wasn’t conventionally handsome – actually, he wasn’t handsome at all – and he certainly wasn’t my type. I was used to high school boys who were clean-cut, athletic, and dressed in denim, so Ike’s processed hair, diamond ring, and skinny body looked old to me, even though he was only 25. I couldn’t help thinking, “God, he’s ugly.”
She and her sister Aillene became regulars at the Club Manhattan, where Anna grabbed a microphone one night during a break and started singing. My voice cut through the noise, forcing everyone, including Ike, to
take another look at Little Ann. He loved what he heard, and it was the music, not the usual boy/girl thing, that drew us together. Ike and I became fast friends, like brother and sister.
She became a regular singer with Ike’s band, the Kings Of Rhythm, and fell for the sax player, bearing him a son, Craig, in 1958, when she was just 18. The relationship didn’t last, and by 1959, as Anna was juggling club gigs with work as a nurse’s aide to care for the baby, her relationship with Ike turned sexual, and she was soon pregnant. She made her first studio recording – “A Fool in Love” which Ike wrote – in 1960, and after Sun Records paid him $25,000 for it, Ike changed the name of their act to The Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he figured out I was going to be his money maker. He needed to control me, economically and psychologically, so I could never leave him. My new first name rhymed with “Sheena,” a character he remembered from a TV series. And “Turner,” my new last name, implied that we were married (which we weren’t). Ike actually registered a trademark on the name “Tina Turner” so it belonged to him.
I said I didn’t want to change my name and wasn’t sure I wanted to go out on tour. He was verbally abusive. Then, he picked up a wooden shoe stretcher. Ike knew what he was doing. If you play guitar, you never use your fists in a fight. He used the shoe stretcher to strike me in the head – always the head. I was so shocked I started to cry. Ike ordered me to get on the bed. I hated him at that moment. The very last thing I wanted to do was make love, if you could call it that. When he finished, I laid there with a swollen head, thinking, “You’re pregnant and you have no place to go. You really have gotten yourself into something now.” Our life together was a mockery of a “normal” relationship: defined by abuse and fear, not love, or even affection.
Tina became the Revue’s star, but it was Ike who pocketed the money. She gave birth to their son Ronnie in October 1960 and took on mothering Ike’s older sons, Ike Jr. and Michael. She and Ike finally married in Tijuana in 1962.
As long as Ike was in down-and-dirty Tijuana, he wanted to have fun, his kind of fun. Guess where we went after we visited the Mexican version of a justice of the peace? To a whorehouse. On my wedding night! I’ve never, ever, told anyone this story because I was too embarrassed.
Their fame grew, but Ike’s abuse continued,
“I have finally accepted my past and I’m very happy that I can even laugh about it now and then”
and she felt helpless to leave.
At my lowest, I convinced myself that death was my only way out. I actually tried to kill myself in 1968. I went to my doctor and told him I was having trouble sleeping. Right after dinner, I took all 50 of the pills he gave me. I was unhappy when I woke up. But I came out of the darkness believing I was meant to survive.
In July 1976, after one of what she describes as his “five-day cocaine benders,” Ike beat her for refusing to eat a melted chocolate bar. Tina walked out of the hotel they were in, ran across Interstate 30 to a Ramada Inn and, from there, stayed with a series of friends. She ultimately took the kids and left permanently, appearing on TV variety and game shows to pay the bills. When Tina and Ike divorced in 1978, she recouped none of the money she’d made for Ike.
I told the judge, “It’s only blood money. I want nothing.” I did have one request. I wanted to continue using the name “Tina Turner,” which Ike owned. I walked out of that courtroom with the name Tina Turner and my two Jaguars, one from Sammy Davis Jr. and one from Ike, and that’s it. It seems so funny now – no money for food or rent, but two Jaguars! Considering my age, 39, my gender, my colour, and the times we lived in, everything was strong winds against me. But you keep going.
Her 1984 solo album “Private Dancer” made her a star again, winning her three Grammys. She sold out stadiums where her typical encore was a version of ZZ Top’s “Legs” – a nod to the attention her own legs, to her bafflement, always garnered.
I truly don’t get the fuss. Did you ever see a pony’s legs when it’s just born? Long and spindly? That’s what my legs looked like to me. My short torso is hooked onto these two little dangling legs, but I’ve learned to wear clothes to flatter them. She had little interest in a second chance romance.
I was never one of those women who had to have sex no matter what. There have been times when I’ve gone up to a year without it, to be honest. Don’t laugh, but I’ve always been a little nervous about starting a relationship with a new man because I didn’t know how my wig would be received! As much as I loved the convenience and easy beauty, I always ran the risk of meeting a man who might have a problem becoming romantically involved with Tina, with her bountiful hair and glamorous trimmings, but waking up with unadorned Anna Mae. What if he were disappointed by the real me? Her fears fell away in 1985 when she met Erwin Bach, the music producer her record
company sent to meet her at the Cologne airport on a 1985 tour stop. He was 16 years younger, but their mutual attraction transcended the age difference.
I had no idea that I would find swoony, love-at-first-sight love in Germany. One night I said to myself, I’m just going to ask him. I looked at him – so handsome in his Lacoste shirt, jeans, and loafers without socks – and whispered, “Erwin, when you come to America, I want you to make love to
me.” He just looked at me, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. I couldn’t believe what I said either! He thought, “Those wild California girls!” But I wasn’t wild. I had never done anything like that before.
In love, Tina left California for London in 1988 to be closer to Erwin. Soon they bought a house together outside Cologne, Germany, then moved to Switzerland to follow his job. After 26 years together and one rejected marriage proposal, she said
yes to Erwin’s second try and they were married in 2013 at their villa on Lake Zurich. But their happiness was cut short: Three months later Tina suffered a stroke. At the hospital, in denial about her condition, she tried to get up from the exam table and fell to the floor.
That’s when I discovered I couldn’t stand on my own. I was too embarrassed to call for help. Legs for days and muscles of steel from dancing, but I didn’t have the strength to get up. Terrified, I dragged myself over to a sofa, thinking I couldn’t imagine Tina Turner paralysed. I doubted I would ever be able to wear high heels again, let alone dance in them.
Tina learned to walk again, but still has trouble writing (“autographs are out of the question”). And the problems kept coming. In 2016, she had just learned her kidneys were failing when she got another shocking diagnosis: intestinal cancer.
“Aren’t you sorry you married an old woman,” I cried to Erwin, because we seemed to spend all of our time going from one
doctor to another. Erwin always radiated confidence, optimism and joie de vivre. With his help, I tried to keep calm.
The cancer, detected early, was treated and she began dialysis. Then, convinced blood pressure meds made her feel worse, she saw a homeopath and switched to alternative treatments, like drinking water purified by crystals. The result: kidney failure.
I’ve had successful experiences with homeopathic medicine in the past, but this time I had a serious, long-term illness that was dependent on conventional treatment. The consequences of my ignorance ended up being a matter of life and death. At this terrible moment of guilt and selfrecrimination, I learned something wonderful about Erwin. He never reproached me for my mistake. Instead, he was loyal, kind and understanding – and determined to help me get through all this alive.
So determined, in fact, that Erwin offered his wife one of his kidneys for the transplant she needed in 2017. He was very emotional about not wanting to lose me. I was overwhelmed by his offer. I wondered if anyone would think that Erwin’s living donation was transactional in some way. Incredibly, considering how long we had been together, there were still people who wanted to believe that Erwin married me for my money and fame. What else would a younger man want with an older woman? Erwin and I knew it wasn’t true and always ignored the rumours. What we had together was real.
The transplant, from which Erwin soon recovered, has left Tina with significant health challenges as her body persists in trying to reject the new kidney. But with her beloved by her side, she stays strong.
I lived through a hellish marriage that almost destroyed me, but I went on. My medical adventure is far from over. But I’m still here – we’re still here, closer than we ever imagined. I can look back and understand why my karma was the way it was. Good came out of bad. Joy came out of pain. With Erwin, I have never been so completely happy as I am today.
This is an edited excerpt from Tina Turner: My Love Story, out now If you or someone you know needs support, help is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14.