In 2018, Tina Turner, the legendary American singer who passed away last Wednesday at the age of 83, released her autobiography entitled My love story, in which she recounted the details of how the man who had been her partner for over 30 years ago he donated one of his kidneys to save her from kidney failure.
Back then, Turner had been practicing Buddhism for decades, which she said had helped her overcome an abusive relationship, her son’s suicide, a stroke and intestinal cancer.
“In Buddhism it is taught that you live and that you die, it is something that is accepted,” the singer told CBS in an interview during the book launch tour.
However, her husband, the German music producer Erwin Bach, was blunt and insisted until Turner accepted in 2017 that he donate one of his own kidneys to save his life. That kidney of hers kept her alive for 6 more years.
The relationship between Turner and Bach, which began in 1985, was what helped the singer overcome the ravages of the first part of her life, particularly the abusive relationship she had with musician Ike Turner, whom she divorced in 1978. .
And, according to her, it was Bach who helped her achieve the tranquility and stability that she so longed for.
“Love at first sight”
Both Tina and Erwin recounted in the 2021 documentary Tina that they met for the first time at the Düsseldorf airport in Germany.
«[Él] He was 16 years younger than me. He was 30 at the time and had the cutest little face,” Turner recalled. «My heart was beating very fast, that means that the souls have found each other. My hands were shaking.”
Erwin was doing Tina’s manager a favor by picking her up at the airport.
“We enjoyed the trip,” Erwin recalled, “I enjoyed taking the artist, a superstar in fact. And normally, one would be nervous, but I was not.
By the time of that first meeting, Tina Turner had exploded onto the global music scene with the 1984 album Private Dancer, and the single that catapulted her to international success as a solo artist, What’s Love Got to do with it.
When host Oprah Winfrey asked Tina about Erwin in a 2018 interview, Turner responded with the candor and sincerity that have characterized her entire career: “He really needed love. She needed to love a person ».
However, they also faced difficulties: the first was the difference in age at a time when it was not common for women over 40 to have partners much younger than themselves. Some even suggested that Erwin had sought her out for her money.
Turner referenced this in his 2021 autobiography: “Unbelievably, considering the time we’d already spent together, there were still people who wanted to believe that Erwin married me for the money and the fame. What more could a young man want from an older woman?
But for Turner, her marriage to Erwin was “the only one” of her life, despite the 16 years she spent with Ike Turner.
“We give each other freedom and space to be individuals while being a couple,” she said in her autobiography, “Erwin, who is a force of nature himself, has never been intimidated by my career, my talent or my fame. He shows me that true love doesn’t require me to dim my light so he can shine.”
“On the contrary, we are the light of each other’s lives and we want to shine as bright as we can, together.”
Together but not mixed
Tina and Erwin were together for 27 years before getting married in 2013, but it wasn’t because he hadn’t tried.
Erwin proposed to her twice, once before the singer’s 50th birthday, but Tina never responded to the proposal.
Amidst laughter, Erwin told Oprah in 2018 that the first time he proposed to Tina, he misphrased the question in English. And to her surprise, she preferred not to answer him.
“I was trying to show Tina my commitment. I think when a woman turns 50 she should have her partner’s commitment,’ she said during an interview with Oprah.
“I was engaged and I wanted to show this, so I got down on one knee. I never did that before in my life, never been married before. And I had my ring ready… I had everything ready.”
Tina confessed to the American presenter: “I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it was real. And I didn’t want to say ‘no’ because I wanted to continue the relationship.”
They finally got married in 2013 and continued to live together in Switzerland until the singer’s death on Wednesday.
In her 2018 autobiography, Turner summed up what her relationship with Erwin meant: “Now I can look back and understand why my karma was what it was. Good came out of bad. The joy of pain. And I’ve never been as happy as I am today.”
