You’re with the angels now...
Joan’s tribute to tragic goddaughter, 49
DAME Joan Collins has paid a touching tribute to her goddaughter Milica Kastner after she died from cancer aged 49.
Mother-of-two Milica, an actress, was the daughter of American film producer Elliott Kastner and British interior designer Tessa Kennedy.
Princess Grace of Monaco was another of her godparents, along with the King of Jordan.
Yesterday, veteran movie star Joan, 87, posted on her Instagram account: “May you #restinpeace my beautiful brave #goddaughter @milica_kastner.
“You fought a great fight and I admire you so much for your strength. You are with the #angels now and you have always been an #angel.”
Milica was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and stage four uterine sarcoma – a rare cancer of the uterus – in February 2019.
In January, she spoke of her battle publicly for the first time.
She said on her dedicated Instagram account, called Two Stage Fours: “Having had two stage four cancers I was inspired to share my story even if it helps four people.”
Milica famously befriended pop star Robbie Williams when she moved in next door to him in Notting Hill, where she lived with her two children Jack, 15, whose father is American film producer Cary Woods, and daughter Sophia, 11, whose father is art dealer Alex Corcoran.
Her three half-brothers include actor Cary Elwes, who starred in The Princess Bride.
He posted on Instagram: “My dear sweet Milica…she had an enormous capacity to care for others over herself. A rare quality of inclusion which makes this loss even more insurmountable.
“Even whilst suffering she would not want to talk about her day, but about yours.”
TINA Turner has revealed she has forgiven her abusive ex-husband Ike as she bids farewell to her fans in a new film.
The singer, 81, talks about her brutal union with her now late partner in a feature-length documentary in which she looks back on her career.
Her rare appearance comes after she battled ill health for years, including a stroke, cancer and kidney failure, which led to a transplant in 2017.
Reflecting on her career and upbringing, she said: “It wasn’t a good life. The good did not balance the bad. 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.”
She tells how a childhood filled with cruelty and violence may explain why she seemed to accept mental and physical torture from Ike, whom she married in 1962.
During their union, she was reborn into a global singing star, changing her birth name of Anna Mae Bullock.
For three decades she and Ike delivered a string of hits. It wasn’t until 1976, after years of beatings and psychological torture from Ike, that she finally had the courage to leave.
She says she stayed so long because they had a son, Ronnie, and she adopted two of Ike’s children, Ike Jr and Michael, from a previous relationship.
Now 14 years after his death from an accidental drug overdose, Tina says she is at peace with their life.
The Simply The Best singer, who lives in Switzer-land with her second husband, Erwin Bach, said: “For a long time I did hate Ike. But then, after he died, I really realised that he was an ill person. He did get me started, and he was good to me in the beginning. So I have some good thoughts. Maybe it was a good thing that I met him, I don’t know. “At a certain stage, forgiveness takes over, forgiving means not having to hold on. “By not forgiving, you suffer because you think about it over and over.” Tina also talks about a childhood filled with poverty and misery, with her family picking cotton around Nutbush, Tennessee.
Her father, Floyd Bullock, would beat her mum, Zelma, before they abandoned her as a child. Even after becoming a superstar and reuniting with her mother, it failed to change things. Tina said: “Mom was not kind. “When I became a star, of course, she was happy because I bought her a house. I did all kinds of things for her, she was my mother. I was trying to make her comfortable because she didn’t have a husband, she was alone, but she still didn’t like me.
“She didn’t want me, she didn’t want to be around me, even though she wanted my success.
“But I did for her as if she loved me.”
Turner is also seen talking with Erwin. She met the German, who is 16 years her junior, when she
Closure
visited Europe. Tina was 46, and he was 30, although they didn’t marry until eight years ago.
Tina says: “He had the prettiest face. It was like, ‘Where did he come from?’ He was so good looking. My heart went ba-bum. It means that a soul has met.
“When he found out that
I liked him, he came to America, and we were in Nashville, and I said, ‘When you come to LA, I want you to make love to me.’
“I thought that I could say that because I was a free woman.”
In the documentary, the couple make a trip to the US for the Broadway premiere of her stage show, The Tina Turner Story.
Erwin, 65, explains: “She said, ‘I’m going to America to say goodbye to my American fans, and I’ll wrap it up’.
“This documentary and play, this is it, it’s a closure.” ●●Tina is on Sky Documentaries, via altitude.film and Now TV, on Sunday March 28 the