“Queen of Rock N’ Roll”, Tina Turner dies at 83 after suffering a long term illness

American singer Tina Turner died this past Wednesday. 

The music icon was 83 years old and her death was confirmed by the her agent in a statement quoted by Sky News. 

“Tina Turner, Queen of Rock’n’Roll, died peacefully at age 83.”

Born in Tennessee and currently living in Switzerland, Tina Turner died at home in Kusnacht, near Zurich. 

“With her, the world loses a music legend and a reference to follow ”, reads the statement.

With a powerful voice and energetic stage performances, Tina Turner — whose birth name was Anna Mae Bullock — has won eight Grammys throughout her career and was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2021. 

Tina Turner showed how “a black woman can conquer the stage and be a powerhouse and a multidimensional human being”. 

Known for singles such as “Simply, The Best” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, Tina Turner began her career in the late 1950s, joining ‘The Kings of Rhythm’, Ike Turner’s band, with whom she would star in a tumultuous relationship.

It was already in the early 60’s that Ike and Tina launched into one of the most famous duos of all time. 

Offstage, the marriage between the two is remembered as one of the most controversial in the history of the music industry. 

Heavily addicted to cocaine (he would die of an overdose in 2007), Ike Turner was unfaithful and physically abusive towards Tina. The episodes of violence, confirmed by both parties over the years, were such that the singer even tried to commit suicide in 1968. In 1976, after yet another altercation, Tina Turner ran away from Ike and asked for a divorce, abruptly ending the partnership between the two.

Remembered today as one of the greatest stage divas, the truth is that her solo career took several years to reach the heights associated with the “Queen of Rock’n’Roll”. Indebted and grappling with several lawsuits for breach of contract following the breakup of the duo with her ex-husband, it was between appearances on television shows and concerts in small arenas, residences in hotels and cabarets that she spent the last years of the 1990s. 1970s and the first of the 1980s.