Tina Turner, the iconic singer often referred to as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” is dead at the age of 83. Her spokesperson Bernard Doherty released a statement on Wednesday, May 24, confirming that the “Proud Mary” artist had passed away at her home in Switzerland, The New York Times reports.
“Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland,” the statement read. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”
While the exact cause of Turner’s death was not immediately announced, she had suffered a stroke in recent years and was facing multiple other health problems including kidney disease and cancer.
Turner, born Annie Anna Bullock in Tennessee in 1939, became a Swiss citizen more than a decade ago and lived on a large estate on Lake Zurich with her husband Erwin Bach, a former record executive with EMI who was 16 years younger than her. They met back in 1985, with Turner describing their meeting as “love at first sight.”
As she told Oprah Winfrey of the day when Bach picked her up from an airport in Germany: “He had the prettiest face. You could not miss it. It was like saying, ‘Where did he come from?’ He was really that good-looking. My heart went bu-bum. It means that a soul has met. My hands were shaking.” They married in July 2013.
Turner’s career began in the 1950s while she was still in high school. She sang for many years with Ike Turner, beginning as a featured performer before taking over the act and becoming a major star in her own right. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue became famous around the world, but their volatile and abusive relationship eventually came to an end in the early 1980s.
Tina Turner went solo with her groundbreaking album “Private Dancer” in 1984 and she never looked back. She became one of the best-selling artists of all time, with more than 100 million records sold internationally.
Tina Turner may be dead, but her legacy will live on forever.
