Tina Turner still haunted by marriage to Ike
HER ex-husband Ike Turner died more than five years ago but rock and roll legend Tina Turner remains haunted by their dysfunctional marriage.
The Simply The Best singer, 73, has revealed that Ike, whose abuse of her was documented in 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It starring Angela Bassett, changed her name from Anna Mae Bullock to Tina Turner so he could always own her.
In an interview on Oprah’s Next Chapter hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Tina says: “The problem was that he [Ike] was a musician who always wanted to be a star and he was a star locally but never internationally.
“He changed my name to Tina because if I ran away Tina was his name. It was patented as you call it.”
“So he could own you,” Oprah interjects. “So he could own me, Tina agrees. “He was smart. He wasn’t an educated smart man but had common sense.”
Despite the ever-present “ghost of Ike”, Tina has gone from strength to strength in both her professional and personal life. Last month she married her partner of 25 years, 57-year-old record executive Erwin Bach, in a star-studded wedding ceremony in Switzerland.
When asked what keeps her going she says: “Endurance. I endured hardship all the way [but] stayed focused – never smoking, never drinking, never doing drugs. I stayed on course from the beginning to the end because I believed in something inside of me that told me that it can get better.”
