Sadly, Tina turner is very ill. And she has come back to America for the last time to say goodbye…
For the first time in years, Tina and her husband Erwin Bach, returned to America, the country whose citizenship she willingly gave up, for the Broadway premiere of her stage show, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical.
It is also the last time they plan to come back here.
On this occasion, she decided to greet and thank her fans.
Tina was born Anna Mae Bullock and her childhood was filled with misery, poverty and abuse as she picked cotton in the fields in and around Natbus, Tennessee as a young woman.
His parents abandoned him in his childhood.
Tina said: “Mum wasn’t kind. When I became a star, of course she was happy because I bought her a house. I did everything for her, she was my mother.
I tried to make her comfortable because she didn’t have a husband, she was alone, but I still didn’t like her.”
It was this childhood abuse that may have contributed to her marriage to Ike Turner in 1962, after meeting in a nightclub in St. Louis, Ike’s Rhythm and Blues Band became the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
We know what happened when she met and married Ike Turner.
Fame, fortune… and daily mental, emotional and physical beatings.
After the bloody coup in 1976, that was enough.
She decided, along with the divorce proceedings… to regain her power.
Despite all the hell she went through with Ike, she found herself the polar opposite of German-born music producer Erwin.
He was gentle.
He was kind.
And he loved it.
“He was very different.” So peaceful. So comfortable. So humble,” Turner said of first meeting her now-husband, German music producer Erwin Bach, 27 years ago at an airport. “I really needed love. I just needed to love the person.”
Their attraction is more than just a spark, Bach (65) added.
“It’s love – it’s something we both have for each other.” I always call it an electric charge,” Bach said in the document. “I still have it… That feeling is still with me. In my heart.”
Although side by side since 1985, they married in 2013, and after living in Switzerland for more than two decades … she renounced her American citizenship then.
And not three weeks after their wedding… she had a stroke, which left her unable to walk or speak.
Erwin was there every second of every day, to help her heal… until she could not only talk, but sing again.
In 2016, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.
Doctors removed the cancerous part of his colon.
Erwin was there every day.
In 2017, after years of taking homeopathic remedies for high blood pressure, it led to complete kidney failure.
What did Erwin do for the woman he loved?
He donated one of his kidneys, which, like their love, was perfect.
“I know my medical adventure is not over,” she said in her 2017 memoir, Turner Turner: My Love Story. “There’s always another test, another doctor’s appointment or biopsy to go through,” adding, “we’re both still here, closer than we ever imagined, and that’s a reason to celebrate.”
She joined the Swiss organization for the right to pass away, the medical aid in dy.ing organization, Ekit.
“It wasn’t my idea of life, but the toxins in my body started to get to me.” I couldn’t eat,” she recalled in her book three years ago. “I survived, but I didn’t live.” I started thinking about loss of life. If my kidneys failed and it was time to pass away, I could accept that, it was okay. When it’s time, it’s really time.”
And she’s grateful to be able to choose, on her own schedule and at her own discretion.
It gives her peace of mind to have such an organization to turn to.
(Three years ago I traveled to Switzerland to be with a dear friend of mine with progressive MS when she decided to pass away with dignity. She was using Dignitas and was relieved to have the opportunity.)
In 2019, still recovering, her 59-year-old son Craig committed su.icide.
She believes that loneliness kiIIed her.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey just weeks after Craig’s loss of life last year, Turner spoke of the initial disbelief she felt when she heard the news. “I didn’t believe it at first because not too long ago Craig said to me, ‘Mom, I’m really happy now.’ He had a new woman in his life and he had just remodeled his apartment,” Turner recalled. “But during our last conversation, he said, ‘I just want to hear your voice and that laugh.’
According to Buddhism, you return to earth and live again until you are right. I believe that his future life will be easier,” she explained. “I think he’s in a good place.”
My saddest moment as a mother. On Thursday, July 19 2018, I said my final goodbye to my son, Craig Raymond Turner, when I gathered with family and friends to scatter his ashes off the coast of California. He was fifty-nine when he passed away so tr.agically, but he will always be my baby pic.twitter.com/XzZQCdz8tl
— TinaTurner (@tinaturner) July 27, 2018
“Fifty years ago I became so hopeless that I tried to kiII myself by overdosing on sleeping pills.”
And she credits Buddhism with saving her life.
Tina Turner sheds light on her path to peace in her new book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for the Better, in which she describes how her Buddhist practices helped her through the darkest moments of her life.
“I truly believe that age is just a number and I have never let age get in my way,” Turner writes in an excerpt shared by People. “Not at 42, when people said I was too old to be a rock star.” And not now, in my eighties, when the book I’ve dreamed of writing for decades is finally in your hands. I’m over 80 years old, but I haven’t ‘made it’, because I’m still challenging myself to grow, to get out of my comfort zone, to improve my life and to be of service to others.”
Fortunately, she was taken to the hospital, where she recovered. “Not long after that, a number of people suggested that I try to chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and study Buddhist principles,” she continued. “The more I learned about it, the more I found the philosophy useful and it made perfect sense to me. Buddhism literally saved my life and I have been chanting with joy every day for about 50 years now.”
So now for the next two weeks, Tina and Erwin are in New York.
She is now 81 years old (Erwin is 65) and has many health problems.
Erwin said: “She said, ‘I’m going to America to say goodbye to my American fans and I’m going to finish it. “And I think this documentary and the show is that — that’s closure.”
Tina said: “It was not a good life. The good didn’t balance the bad,” she said. “I’ve had a violent life, there’s no other way to tell the story.” That is the reality. It’s true. This is what you have, so you have to accept it.
I believe that we all have the potential for unbreakable happiness and that we already have within us everything we need to be happy. We just have to touch it. To me, a truly happy life means feeling optimistic and confident, no matter what circumstances we may face, because we know that our inner wisdom can guide us to make positive decisions. We always have a choice, even if it is seemingly as small as choosing to think more positively or to be grateful for a cherished moment we have experienced.”
