Tina Turner, singing icon known as the ‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ dies at 83

Tina Turner, one of the most admired live performers in the history of music, has died, according to multiple reports. Turner, who was widely known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” was 83 years old.

“With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” her spokesperson, Bernard Doherty, told Deadline.

The spokesperson said she died in Switzerland after a long illness.

Born in Nutbush, Tennessee, in 1939, Turner grew up in Tennessee before moving to St. Louis when she was a teenager. It was there that Turner, under her birth name Anna Mae Bullock, met R&B musician Ike Turner at the Manhattan Club in the late 50s.

She was interested in singing with Ike’s band, but when he ignored her requests, she took the mic and sang while his band was on break, according to the book “The History of Women in Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

“That blew (Ike) away,” she would later say of that performance. “He ran down off that space and picked me right up. He said, ‘I didn’t know you could really sing. What else do you know?’”

Before long, they formed the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame considers “one of the most formidable live acts in history.”

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the duo released dozens of albums that included the hit songs “River Deep — Mountain High,” “A Fool In Love” and “Proud Mary,” the Creedance Cleerwater Revival cover that won the duo a Grammy award in 1972.

“’Proud Mary’ was the single that brought this dynamic group to national attention,” Cash Box said in 1973.

The relationship between Ike and Tina Turner was a tumultuous one. They got married in 1962, but Tina later revealed in her biography, “I, Tina,” that Ike abused her. In 1968, she attempted suicide by overdosing on Valium pills.

“It was my relationship with Ike that made me most unhappy,” she later said. “At first, I had really been in love with him. Look what he’d done for me. But he was totally unpredictable.”

Tina filed for divorce from Ike in 1976 and it was finalized in 1978. With it, their music relationship was also over.

But as a solo artist, Tina Turner enjoyed a career resurgence in the 1980s. Her hit songs included “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” which won her Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammys.

Her success and fandom ballooned, and in 1990, she performed in front of what was at the time a world record 180,000 fans at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

She went on to win eight Grammy awards in her career and received its Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2018. The achievement came nearly a decade after her retirement, which began after the “Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour.”

In 2013, Turner married Erwin Bach, whom she began dating in 1986.

“I listened to my heart. I left my comfort zone and made it a priority to get to know Erwin,” she told People of how their relationship began .”That simple first meeting led to a long, beautiful relationship — and my one true marriage.”

She wrote in her memoir, “Tina Turner: My Love Story,” that Bach donated a kidney to her in 2017 after she suffered total kidney failure, according to The Associated Press.

Accolades for Turner include a star on the Hollywood Rock of Fame, an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with her former spouse and as a solo artist, and recognition into the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors.

“There’s nobody quite like Tina Turner, and in the arc of her life, there is so much to admire — the incredible musical gifts, the inner strength and the moral courage,” President George W. Bush said in 2005. “She’s a woman of achievement, and elegance, and class.”