Ike and Tina Turner with their kids in 1972.Photo:Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
In her 2018 memoirMy Love Story: Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll reflected on her relationship with Ike.
“We were away from the house more than we were there,” she wrote of her family (Tina and Ike shared four boys — Craig, Ike Jr., Michael and Ronnie).
But when everyone was together, she wrote, Ike’s brutality made things worse.
In December 1981, the “Proud Mary” songstress — whodied May 24 after a long illnessat age 83 — spoke out for the first time abouther abusive marriage to Ikeand how she escaped it in an interview with PEOPLE.
“I was living a life of death,” Tinasaid at the time. “I didn’t exist. I didn’t fear him killing me when I left, because I was already dead. When I walked out, I didn’t look back.”
Ike and Tina Turner.GAB Archive/Redferns
The eight-timeGrammywinner and Ike, whodied of a cocaine overdosein December 2007, were married in 1962, divorcing 16 years later. She went on to marry second husbandErwin Bachin 2013, after27 years together.Tinamade her escapefrom Ike on July 1, 1976, while the pair were on tour, staying at the Statler Hilton in Dallas. Ike had beaten her “the entire way from the airport to the hotel,” Tina recalled to PEOPLE. “By the time we got to the hotel, the left side of my face was swollen like a monster’s.”
At the hotel, Tina said, “I massaged him and cooed, ‘Can I order you any food, dear?’ Then he made the mistake of going to sleep.” With only 36 cents in her pocket and a Mobil credit card in her wallet, Tina sprinted across the freeway in the dark of night to another hotel.
A friend bought her a plane ticket home to L.A. and out of Ike’s life. “I felt proud,” Tina told PEOPLE. “I felt strong.”
Tina and Ike Turner in 1975.CBS via Getty Images
CBS via Getty Images
“She really took to raising us personally because basically that was her happiness to a certain extent,” he said.
In 2005, Tina toldO, The Oprah Magazinethat Craig was a “very emotional kid” who reacted morosely to his parents’abusive marriage. “He’d always look down in sadness,” she toldOprah Winfreyof her son.
After Tina and Ike split, the singer also insisted that she no longer work with stepson Ike Jr., who had a musical career of his own.
He briefly worked as Tina’s sound engineer following her split from Ike Sr., who wanted his son and ex to put an end to their professional relationship. “When my mother and father separated, he did not want me working with her — and he beat me in the head with a nickel-plated .45 pistol,” Ike Jr. alleged.
In 2018, Ike Jr. said he hadn’t spoken to Tina in over a decade. “I haven’t talked to my mother since God knows when — probably around 2000,” he told theMail. “My mother is living her life — she has a new husband and she’s in Europe. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with the past.”
source: people.com
