NEWSTina Turner's Sad Last Days: How The Legendary Diva Battled Cancer, Stroke and PTSD
May 24 2023, Published 6:24 p.m. ET
Prior to Tina Turner's death on Wednesday, May 24, the singer decided to live her life outside of the public eye.
The musical icon, who passed away at 83 years old, was rocked by a string of physical and mental health woes, including a 2013 stroke and getting a kidney transplant in 2017.
In the eye-opening documentary Tina, she got candid about her post-traumatic stress disorder and her horrible 16-year marriage to Ike Turner. The abuse from her ex triggered a failed suicide attempt in 1968, leading her to eventually split from Ike in 1978.
Though she had success with her first solo album, Private Dancer, and a starring role in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, she was never able to let go of her past memories with Ike, saying that the abuse haunted her "like a curse."
After the stroke, Tina battled intestinal cancer — months before her kidneys failed.
The "Proud Mary" songstress considered assisted suicide as it is legal in Switzerland, but fortunately, her current husband, Erwin Bach, donated his organ to her.
"It wasn’t my idea of life but the toxins in my body had started taking over. I couldn’t eat," Tina explained in her memoir My Love Story, released in 2018. "I was surviving, but not living. I began to think about death. If my kidneys were going, and it was time for me to die, I could accept that, it was OK. When it’s time, it’s really time."
Tina then made an appearance at the Broadway opening of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, where she looked bloated.
“Tina knows the end is near,” said a source at the time. “This film is truly her last encore.”
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To make matters worse, she was still grappling with the deaths of her two sons, Ronnie, 62, who died in December 2022 after suffering complications from colon cancer, and son Craig, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2018.
“With all the health issues she’s had, losing Ronnie could be the thing that finally kills her!” a source previously said.
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National Enquirer spoke with the sources.
