Her list of accolades is pretty mind-boggling.
With12 Grammysunder her belt, Turner certainly solidified her status as a music legend.
She also starred in movies, wrote a memoir, and inspired millions of fans.
It’s hard to imagine a time when Turner wasn’t the powerhouse we know and love today.
Ready to find out more about her journey?
Here is the stunning transformation of the late, great Tina Turner.
Sadly, from very early on, Turner felt unwanted.
See, my mother didn’t want me in the first place."
While her family wasn’t destitute, they also weren’t well off.
Inan interview with Oprah Winfrey, Turner explained, “We had food on the table.
We just didn’t have fancy things, like bicycles.”
When her parents relocated to Knoxville for work, Turner moved in with her father’s mother.
“She was strict the kind who starched and ironed dresses,” she said.
For the outdoorsy Turner, life with her grandmother was “miserable.”
Then, Turner experienced another blow when her parents separated.
As she explained, this led to bullying at school.
“I got teased, and it interfered with my learning,” she recalled.
She was around 8 when she joined the choir.
Instead, her family thought she might become a nurse or a teacher.
For Turner, the high school romance was everything she could have hoped for.
“He was the most good-looking guy,” she recalled.
“Everything was in the right place his eyes, his nose, his mouth.
He was a basketball star.”
As Turner went on to explain, she had her first sexual experience with Harry.
When her grandmother found out, she was forbidden from dating him.
She said, “Harry would have been the one.”
There, she and her sister went to see Ike in concert.
“His music charged me,” she recalled.
Turner cited this as the moment when she knew she wanted to be a singer.
The two became incredibly close “like brother and sister,” as Tina said.
The pair confided in each other.
Anna Mae Bullock became Tina Turner, and the couple fronted the Ike and Tina Turner Revue.
Their R&B song “A Fool in Love” was a hit on the pop charts.
The pair married in 1962, and they continued to make music.
The abuse went on for a decade and a half.
She was terrified to leave and didn’t know where she would go.
Eventually, the situation got so bad that Turner became suicidal.
“He broke my jaw.
In 1976, she made a radical, life-changing decision she decided to leave.
She then explained how she found some respite in Buddhism.
“One day, our sound engineer said something different to me.
‘Tina, you should try chanting.
It will help you change your life,'” she recalled.
As Turner noted, Buddhism did change her life.
Buddhist chanting helped Turner to feel stronger and more in tune with life.
“I learned how to survive with Ike.
I learned how to perform.
I learned how to cover songs, and work without a record,” she explained.
At first, she performed in the Las Vegas cabaret circuit to make ends meet, as noted byForbes.
Then, Turner joined forces with the talent manager Roger Davies.
Davies set up a three-night run in New York at the Ritz.
After the sold-out run, it was clear that Turner had a big future as a solo artist.
“That was the real beginning of it,” Turner recalled.
Meeting Davies helped Turner find her footing and launch a new career.
Their meeting felt like fate, as they were both looking to grow in the industry.
She went on to explain that she was “as big as Madonna” in Europe.
Turner certainly did rise to superstardom after her first album.
Her song “What’s Love Got to Do With It"reached No.
1on the charts andwon Grammysfor both record of the year and best female pop vocal performance.
In the years that followed, she released more hit albums and performed at huge venues.
Soon, she was known around the world as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll (viaForbes).
She added, “I’ve never been bothered by my color.
If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love.”
Of course, others didn’t share the same views.
Still, I kept a ‘never give up’ spirit.”
Buddhism also helped her to remain positive in the face of discrimination.
“Part of my spiritual practice is to ‘change poison into medicine,'” she said.
Turner began dating the German businessmanErwin Bachin 1986.
“I instantly felt an emotional connection,” she toldPeople.
Eventually, the relationship would become what Turner calls her “one true marriage.”
In 1995, the pair moved to Zurich, settling in a mansion on Lake Zurich.
She added, “I could not imagine a better place to live.”
In 2013, Turner became a Swiss citizen.
As the singer explained onThe Jonathan Ross Show, she was simply ready to spend more time at home.
“You know, I was always away from home, always away from home,” she said.
“Always airplanes, buses, cars, trains,” she recalled.
“And I just really got tired of partying every night, every year,” she said.
In 2019, 10 years after her retirement, Turner couldn’t have been happier.
As she toldThe New York Times, “I don’t sing.
I don’t dance.
I don’t dress up.”
Having experienced a full and long career, she confessed that she didn’t miss it, either.
It also gave her the chance to write her book “Happiness Becomes You” about her spirituality.
Later that month, Tina posted a statement onTwitterwhen she spread his ashes.
“My saddest moment as a mother,” she wrote.
He was fifty-nine when he died so tragically, but he will always be my baby.”
As she toldHarvard Business Review, she tried to let these negative experiences have a positive impact.
As Turner toldThe Guardian, her Buddhist practice helped her face these health scares one by one.
“I summoned up my inner lion and overcame each health problem that came along.
Her bravery and perseverance are truly incredible.
As her interviewer described it, “I felt her life force … Now let me go.'”
“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.
“I should be proud of that.
I am,” she said.
“But when do you stop being proud?
I mean, when do you, how do you bow out slowly?
Just go away?”
However, over the years, it grew to be about more than her success.
Switzerland became her home and where she settled to lead a quieter life after she stopped performing.
Speaking in 2019 to Gayle King ofCBS, Turner described her peaceful life.
“I have everything.
When I sit at the Lake Zurich, in the house that I have, I am so serene.
I have no problems,” Turner said.
Her passing came after years of struggling with cancer.
Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music.”
Upon her death, Turner remains widely regarded as one of the greatest performers in rock history.
Beyond her music and its impact, Turner leaves behind a legacy of inspiring people.
Despite all the hardships, she persevered and stayed focused.
