28/10/2025
She escaped across a freeway with 36 cents in her pocket. Seven years later, she was the biggest rock star on Earth.
Dallas, July 1976. A 36-year-old woman sat in a hotel room watching her husband—also her boss, her business partner, and her brutal abuser—sleep.
For sixteen years, Ike Turner had controlled every aspect of Tina's life. He'd beaten her with coat hangers. Burned her with ci******es. Broken her jaw. Made her perform bloodied and bruised. Told her she was nothing without him.
That night, she had a single thought: "The way out is through the door."
So she walked through it.
She ran across a Dallas freeway in the middle of the night, dodging semi-trucks, with nothing but the clothes on her back, 36 cents, and a Mobil gas card in her pocket.
She checked into a Ramada Inn and called her manager to send her money. Then she filed for divorce.
In the settlement, Ike's lawyers came with demands. Tina came with one request: she wanted nothing.
Not the song rights. Not the houses. Not the cars. Not the money from songs she'd sung, albums she'd made famous, tours she'd performed through broken bones and black eyes.
All she wanted was the name: Tina Turner.
That was the name the world knew. That was her only asset. The only thing she could use to rebuild a career from ashes.
Ike got everything else. The masters. The royalties. The property. The catalog.
Tina got the debt from cancelled tour dates and a name that had been famous—past tense.
Most people assumed she was done. A 36-year-old woman who'd just walked away from an abusive marriage and a successful career? In an industry that chewed up and spit out younger, less traumatized people every day?
The smart money said she'd fade into obscurity. Maybe work casino lounges in Vegas. Maybe record for small labels. Maybe just disappear.
For a few years, it looked like the smart money might be right.
She took any gig she could get. She opened for younger acts. She played smaller venues. She worked Vegas, slowly rebuilding her voice, her confidence, her life—while paying off the debt from the marriage she'd escaped.
She saw a therapist. She practiced her Buddhism—Nichiren chanting that she'd started in 1973, that had given her the strength to finally leave. She spoke publicly about the abuse, giving hope to women trapped in similar situations.
And she refused to give up on herself.
In 1983, she recorded a cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" that started getting attention. Capitol Records took notice. They gave her a shot—but just barely.
Two weeks. That's how long they gave her to record her solo comeback album, "Private Dancer."
Two weeks to prove she wasn't washed up. Two weeks to justify the label's minimal investment. Two weeks to save her career.
Most artists would have panicked. Would have played it safe. Would have tried to recreate what worked before.
Tina Turner, at 44 years old, walked into that studio and recorded one of the greatest rock albums of the decade.
"Private Dancer" didn't just succeed. It exploded. Five times platinum in the U.S. alone. Four Grammy Awards. The single "What's Love Got to Do with It" hit number one.
But here's what really happened: Tina Turner didn't just have a comeback. She became bigger than she'd ever been with Ike.
In the 1980s, Tina Turner became the biggest rock star on the planet.
Not in a category. Not "for her age." Not with an asterisk.
She was headlining stadiums. One night it's The Rolling Stones. The next night, it's Tina Turner.
A Black woman in her mid-40s—an age when the industry usually considers female performers washed up—sitting atop rock and roll like it was her throne.
She sold out arenas across the world. She performed with Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Queen. She became a global phenomenon, bigger internationally than almost any American artist.
That voice—that raw, wildcat-fierce, spine-tingling voice that could tear through any song. Those legs. That dance. That unstoppable energy.
She was 45, 46, 47 years old, outperforming musicians half her age and making it look effortless.
The woman who fled across a freeway with 36 cents had become the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll.
But the best part of her story wasn't the comeback. It was what came after.
In 1986, Tina met Erwin Bach, a German music executive sixteen years younger. She was a superstar. He was a behind-the-scenes industry professional.
They fell in love.
For once, Tina found someone who wasn't intimidated by her fame, her talent, her power. "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right," she said, "has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame."
They were together for 27 years before marrying in 2013, after she became a Swiss citizen and retired to a palatial estate overlooking Lake Zurich.
Then, in 2016, her kidneys began to fail.
She'd survived poverty, abuse, career destruction, and years of rebuilding. But kidney disease was threatening to end it all.
As a Swiss resident, she had access to assisted su***de. She started making plans.
Erwin stopped her.
"He didn't want another woman, or another life," she said.
He gave her one of his kidneys.
Think about that arc: from a man who broke her bones to a man who gave her his organs. From someone who took everything to someone who gave everything.
Erwin's kidney bought her seven more years—years in a beautiful Swiss home, years of peace, years with a man who loved her enough to literally give part of himself to keep her alive.
She died in May 2023 at age 83. Tina Turner. Born Anna Mae Bullock to sharecroppers in Nutbush, Tennessee.
She left with 36 cents and became royalty.
She survived hell and became a Buddhist who found peace.
She was written off in her 30s and became the biggest rock star in her 40s.
She was abused by one man and cherished by another who gave her his kidney.
She walked out a door with nothing and built everything.
Her voice. Her legs. Her dance. Her survival. Her courage. Her refusal to be anything less than transcendent.
The girl from Nutbush who became the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll.
Simply the best. Better than all the rest.
And she proved it every single day from that Dallas freeway until her final breath in Switzerland.
