Tina Turner’s final interview: her biggest achievement
Tina Turner opened up about her greatest life achievement just weeks before her death in an interview with The Weekend Australian.
In what is believed the final interview before she died Tina Turner said there was one thing she was most proud of when looking back over her life: “Ultimately, I’m proud that I never gave up.
“I battled for years even after leaving Ike, and that battle felt lonely and impossible for what seemed a long time,” said Turner, whose story of survival is almost as famous as her music. “I’m proud I didn’t give up, I’m proud that I fought for my dream.”
Turner passed away aged 83 at home in Küsnacht near Zurich on Wednesday after battling a long illness. She responded to The Weekend Australian Review’s questions over email on April 22 for a feature about the Australian premiere of the twelve-time Tony Award nominated musical TINA in Sydney. The musical tells the story of how she found fame performing with first husband Ike Turner for 16 years before transforming into a megastar as a divorced woman and single mother of four in her forties.
Turner practised Buddhism and had written at length, including in self-help book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, about how chanting mantras daily had helped her to transform her life. She told Review: “My faith (Buddhism) gave me the strength and belief I needed to leave Ike and move forward.”
She also chronicled at length, including in her 2018 autobiography My Love Story, the abuse she sustained at the hands of her ex-husband, a relationship she ensured was authentically reflected in the stage musical. “[I]t was very important to me that we showed it how it really was, not a sanitised version of it,” she said. “Not just for me but for the many women who experience domestic abuse.”
Turner will not only be remembered for her anthems such as The Best, but for giving hope to survivors of domestic violence.
Women’s Aid, a UK charity working to end domestic abuse against women and children, posted on Twitter today about the singer: “The news of #TinaTurner’s passing is especially saddening as we celebrated her life and legacy at @TinaTheMusical just yesterday. As a survivor of domestic abuse and a tremendous inspiration, she will always be #SimplyTheBest”.
Turner sold 200 million records worldwide and retired from performing in 2009 with a 90-show world tour. Her What’s Love Got to do With It?, which saw her become the oldest solo female artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 – at age 44 – and to date remains her biggest hit.
That the singer was widely admired across the arts and beyond was evident in a flood of social media tributes posted on Thursday.
“I’m so sad to hear that Tina Turner has left us,” wrote rock singer Jimmy Barnes. “It was such an honour to work with someone so talented, strong and giving. It was certainly a highlight of my career to have sung and shared the stage with such a wonderful human being. Thank you and R.I.P.”
Barnes had famously worked with Turner when the pair recorded a duet version of her signature song The Best, which was written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight. Released in 1992, their duet was retitled (Simply) The Best, and used to promote that year’s NSW Rugby League season.
It was an inspired choice that saw her powerful feminine energy paired with Barnes’s distinctively masculine voice, and the pair soundtracked the sport’s undeniable brutality: two lines of fit men running into one another, repeatedly, while fighting for control of a white football.
In his 2017 memoir Working Class Man, Barnes described how he had been hooked on Turner’s vocal power since he first heard her sing River Deep, Mountain High in 1966. “Even as a young boy I could feel the electricity,” he wrote. “I could feel the heat. I didn’t know what was generating that heat. I was too young to understand the raw sexual power of Tina and her look. But I knew I liked it.”
Of their collaboration in 1992, Barnes wrote, “This campaign was one of the greatest collaborations of music, sport and advertising I had ever seen. Since 1989, Tina had taken rugby league, a game strictly for blokes and blokes alone, and made it accessible to women and families. To the masses. The game went from strength to strength. The whole idea was absolute genius.”
“In 1992, the NRL asked me if I would consider joining Tina in the TV ads,” he wrote. “This meant I would have to travel to Holland to record and make a film clip with her. They would pay me a fortune. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. I would have paid them to let me sing with her.”
“It was one of the greatest moments in my life to stand next to Tina as she sang in the studio,” wrote Barnes. “Everything I remembered from being that 10-year-old kid listening to her sing on the radio was right there in front of me. She was strong, beautiful, emotional, sexy, warm, loving and incredibly powerful. Tina was the real deal.”
Australian-born Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, aka Michael Balzary, wrote, “Truest rocker. Greatest performer. Most profoundly sexy woman. What a dynamo, what a story, what a heroine. Always an energy inspiration for me, always tapping the source. Tina forever. Man. Always been in awe of her and the infinite power.”
The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger wrote, “I’m so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner. She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer. She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”
Fellow American singer Gloria Gaynor wrote, “I am so, so very sad to hear of the passing of Tina Turner, the iconic legend who paved the way for so many women in rock music, black and white. She did with great dignity & success what very few would even have dared to do in her time and in that genre of music.”
Her cultural influence was felt well beyond the music world. Prime minister Anthony Albanese wrote, “Sad to hear of the passing Tina Turner – a legend who overcame trauma and domestic violence to provide a soundtrack to our lives – Tina was Simply the Best. Vale.”
Former US president Barack Obama wrote, “Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself—speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy. Today we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade.”
American television host and author Oprah Winfrey wrote, “I started out as a fan of Tina Turner, then a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then, eventually, we became real friends. She is our forever goddess of rock ‘n’ roll who contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn’t know existed.”
Winfrey continued: “Once she claimed her freedom from years of domestic abuse, her life became a clarion call for triumph. I’m grateful for her courage, for showing us what victory looks like wearing Manolo’s and a leather miniskirt.”
Winfrey’s tribute concluded: “She once shared with me that when her time came to leave this earth, she would not be afraid, but excited and curious. Because she had learned how to LIVE surrounded by her beloved husband, Erwin, and friends. I am a better woman, a better human, because her life touched mine. She was indeed simply the best.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: Andrew McMillen
