Tina Turner posts rare new photo ahead of documentary, following years of ill health

After years spent battling ill health, Tina Turner has reappeared in a new photo to celebrate her upcoming “farewell” documentary.

Tina Turner has appeared in a rare new image as the legendary singer prepares to enter the next chapter of her life completely out of the spotlight.

The 81-year-old, who has already largely retreated from public life over the last decade, posted a photo of herself on Instagram as she prepares for the global release of her new documentary film, Tina, which airs on Foxtel in Australia on Sunday.

Tina Turner via her Instagram this week, telling fans to tune into her documentary this weekend.

The photo is one of the first times fans have seen a recent snapshot of Turner, who has been plagued by ill health in recent years including a stroke, cancer and a kidney transplant, in more than a year.

She’d earlier posted a special video message to fans for her 80th birthday in November 2019, declaring: “I look great, I feel great.”

RELATED: Tina Turner’s retreat from public life explained

Tina Turner on her 80th birthday in November 2019.

To celebrate turning 80 years old, Tina has recorded a special birthday video message just for her fans.💜 #Tina80pic.twitter.com/dUFEUawQ7r

— TinaTurner (@LoveTinaTurner) November 26, 2019

Tina, an HBO feature-length documentary, was filmed in 2019, and shows Turner revisiting her early years which were fraught with struggle and domestic abuse, before her career dreams finally came true as a middle-aged woman.

The film also serves as Turner’s final farewell to fans, with the ‘Queen of Rock n Roll’ wanting to enter the final phase of her life in private.

Looking back, Turner reflects in the doco: “It wasn’t a good life. 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. That’s what you’ve got, so you have to accept it.”

RELATED: Inside Tina Turner’s traumatic life and ill health

‘Tina’ by Oscar-winning directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin traces Turner’s six-decade career as an unlikely triumph over abuse and discrimination. Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP

In the documentary (which premieres express from the US on Sunday, March 28 at 11am AEDT, with a prime time encore at 8.30pm AEDT on Foxtel Movies Premiere channel and available On Demand), Tina is seen for the first time talking with the man who finally brought her happiness, her second husband, Erwin Bach.

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Tina Turner and her husband, Erwin Bach. Picture: Jacopo Raule/Getty Images for Giorgio Armani

The details of Turner’s life have been chronicled before in her 1986 autobiography, I, Tina, and in the 1993 biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It? with Angela Bassett as Turner.

But this is the first time Turner has been willing to discuss it in depth on camera.

Turner seen in a preview for ‘Tina’, her documentary. Picture: NBC Universal/Foxtel

Tina premieres express from the US on Sunday, March 28 at 11am AEDT, with a prime time encore at 8.30pm AEDT on Foxtel Movies Premiere channel and available On Demand

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