Tina Turner: The trauma and triumph of a music legend

Published

2 years ago

May 25, 2023

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“Look what I have done in this lifetime, with this body,” said Tina Turner, in a documentary released about her life in 2021. “I’m a girl from a cotton field, that pulled myself above what was not taught to me.”

Tina Turner‘s life was a story of trauma and triumph – she was the star known for her energetic stage performances and her incomparable soulful, husky voice, who overcame several personal and professional struggles to become the Queen of Rock ‘n Roll.

Following her death at the age of 83, tributes have been paid to a “legend”, an “icon” and a “remarkable force of nature,” from fellow music stars to the White House, with clips of her biggest hits – including Proud Mary, Nutbush City Limits, The Best, We Don’t Need Another Hero, and What’s Love Got To Do With It – flooding social media.

‘The world loses a legend’ – tributes to Tina Turner

Throughout her career, Turner won a total of 12 Grammys and was a two-time inductee into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, as a solo artist and as part of the duo she formed with ex-husband, Ike Turner, in the 1960s.

She was the first woman to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone and a record breaker – previously holding the Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer, attracting an audience of 180,000 for her show at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1988.

And she also inspired an award-winning musical based on her incredible life – the story of the star who achieved stratospheric success, including sales of more than 100 million records worldwide, after overcoming years of abuse from both her father and ex-husband, and pushback from those who told her she could not make it as a solo star.

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, on 26 November 1939, to parents Zelma Priscilla and Floyd Richard Bullock. At the age of 11, she moved to live with her grandmother after her mother left her abusive relationship with her father.

Aged 16, she joined her mother and sister Alline in the city of St Louis in Missouri, which is where she encountered her future husband for the first time.

She soon joined his band The Kings Of Rhythm as its first female member – and when she reimagined herself as Tina Turner in 1960, the group reformed to become the Ike And Tina Turner Revue.

That same year, Turner gave birth to their first child Ronnie and the couple wed in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962. Ronnie was her second child; her first, Craig Raymond Turner, was with the saxophonist for the Kings Of Rhythm, Raymond Hill.

The group produced a string of RnB hits, including A Fool In Love and It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, but it was the release of River Deep – Mountain High in 1966 that saw their popularity soar around the world. The release was followed by a UK tour with The Rolling Stones as the band’s support act.

Songs such as Come Together, Honky Tonk Woman and Proud Mary helped cement their status, with the latter winning them a Grammy in 1972.

But behind the scenes, Turner was enduring abuse at the hands of her husband.

She stayed with him until 1976, but later revealed she had attempted suicide during their relationship. “I simply couldn’t take any more,” she wrote in her 2018 memoir, of the moment she hit rock bottom.

During their divorce, she reportedly asked for nothing more than the right to keep the use of her stage name, and she went on to reinvent herself as a solo star.

It wasn’t easy, with a slow start for debut album Tina Turns The Country On! in 1974, followed by Acid Queen in 1975, but Turner pushed back against those who told her that, as a black woman approaching 40, she would never make the transition to rock.

Throughout the 1980s, she rebuilt her career, with a string of hits starting in 1983 with a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, and the 1984 release of her album Private Dancer. Her most recognisable song, a cover of The Best, was released in 1989. By then, her image of big hair and mini-skirts had become iconic, her famous legs becoming almost as famous as her distinctive voice.

In 1986, Turner was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Her first induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, for her work with Ike, came in 1991, though neither attended the ceremony. Her induction as a solo artist came some 30 years later, in 2021.

“If they’re still giving me awards at 81, I must have done something right,” she said in a recorded acceptance speech.

She was inducted by Angela Bassett, the actress who portrayed Turner in the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It. Both Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, who played Ike, were nominated for Oscars for their performances.

“Imagine, a black girl from Nutbush, Tennessee, who embodied more talent than her small town could have ever dreamed,” Bassett said at the Hall Of Fame ceremony. “Imagine that same girl breaking through every barrier to one day make history.

“People still tell me how much Tina has meant to them. I know exactly what they mean, because she has meant that much and more to me. I too am one of those people blessed by Tina’s remarkable gift to inspire.”

In the 1990s, Turner joined the list of Bond musicians, voicing the title song for Pierce Brosnan’s Goldeneye.

After a brief break from showbusiness, she returned to the limelight in 2008 at the Grammy Awards, where she performed Proud Mary alongside Beyonce. Other notable duets through her career included performing with David Bowie, and with The Rolling Stones during Live Aid in 1985.

In 2008, she embarked on her 50th-anniversary tour, and in 2016 she announced Tina – The Tina Turner Musical.

In 2021, she sold the rights to her back catalogue after reaching an agreement with BMG for an undisclosed sum, and the last of her 34 UK Top 40 hits was released in 2020, when she re-recorded What’s Love Got To Do With It with Norwegian DJ Kygo.

Turner’s solo works include 10 studio albums, two live albums, two soundtracks and five compilations, which together have sold more than 100 million records. As well as her music, Turner also starred in films including Tommy in 1975, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985, and Last Action Hero in 1993.

In her personal life, she met music producer Erwin Bach in the 1980s and the pair married years later on the banks of Lake Zurich in Switzerland, where they lived. In 2013, Bach saved her life by donating her one of his kidneys, she revealed in her memoir in 2018.

She faced heartache that year, when her eldest son Craig died by suicide, and again in 2022 when her second son Ronnie died of cancer.

Known for her strength and resilience throughout her life, in an interview with the New York Times in 2019, she said: “I don’t necessarily want to be a ‘strong’ person. I had a terrible life. I just kept going.”

Turner always kept going.

And in what must have been one of her last interviews before she died, she told The Guardian exactly how she wanted to be remembered – as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “A woman who showed other women that it is okay to strive for success on their own terms.”

Entertainment

Bob Geldof reveals why he won’t run for Irish presidency

Published

12 hours ago

September 17, 2025

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Bob Geldof reveals why he won't run for Irish presidency

Bob Geldof has confirmed he will not be running for the Irish presidency – and says it’s partly because he’d “miss London”.

Speaking to Sky News at the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday night, the 73-year-old musician and aid campaigner said: “My kids are here, my missus is here, my homes are here.

“I’d miss London. The band is here, I wouldn’t be able to play.”

In Ireland, any Irish citizen over 35 can run for president – but to get on the ballot, a candidate must be nominated by 20 members of parliament or four local authorities.

Geldof said: “I simply wouldn’t have had time.”

He said he had considered it, thinking it could be something “new, interesting and useful”, 50 years after finding fame in The Boomtown Rats, and 40 years after launching Band Aid.

Geldof said he’d briefly spoken to Prime Minister Micheal Martin, asking him: “‘What would you think about Bob Geldof being the candidate for the Fianna Fail Party?’ He said, ‘I think it’d be great, but I’ve already chosen someone’.

“I said, ‘That’s the end of the conversation Taoiseach, thanks very much,’ and that was it.”

Former football manager Jim Gavin was later announced as Fianna Fail’s official candidate.

Conor McGregor pulls out

Geldof admitted he was relieved former mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor was no longer in the running.

McGregor, who had promised to curb immigration in order to protect “Irish culture” and to give power “back to the people,” announced he was withdrawing from the race earlier this week.

Ex-Riverdance performer Michael Flatley, 67, has also expressed an interest in running for office.

This year’s ballot deadline is midday on 24 September, a month ahead of the election on 24 October. A largely ceremonial role, representing Ireland at home and abroad, it runs for a seven-year term.

‘Please stop,’ Geldof tells Israel

Geldof, who has Jewish heritage and is the Founding Patron of the British Holocaust Museums Aegis Trust for Genocide Studies, also spoke passionately about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Following a UN Commission report which found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, Geldof said: “When you purposefully starve children as an instrument of war then you are a war criminal.”

He went on: “People simply don’t have the bandwidth to deal with the cost of living, the flag waving, the horror of Ukraine, the horrors of Gaza. They’re just tired, and they just want Israel to please stop it. And the UN has just confirmed that. Stop.”

The accusation of genocide has been made by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the commission to be abolished.

Geldof was speaking at the prestigious Sky Arts event, where he was recognised for his influence as a musician and cultural figure over the last five decades with a lifetime achievement award.

Never afraid to be outspoken, he was one of the defining voices of the 1970s punk era before going on to co-create Band Aid and the historic Live Aid concerts, reshaping the relationship between music and global activism.

Geldof performed with his band, The Boomtown Rats, during the ceremony which took place at London’s Roundhouse, hosted by comedian Bill Bailey.

See all the Sky Arts Awards winners here.

Entertainment

Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford dies at 89

Published

1 day ago

September 16, 2025

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Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford dies at 89

Hollywood actor and Oscar-winning director Robert Redford, known for films including Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men and The Sting, has died at the age of 89.

Redford, who was also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the US, died on Tuesday morning.

In a statement, his representative said he was “surrounded by those he loved”, at home in “the place he loved” in the mountains of Utah. “He will be missed greatly,” she added.

Born Charles Robert Redford Jr in Santa Monica, California, in 1936, he attended college on a baseball scholarship but later went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He debuted on Broadway in the late 1950s before moving into television, in shows such as The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Untouchables.

Rising to stardom in the 1960s, Redford became a go-to leading man in Hollywood and a huge star of the following decade, leading films including The Candidate, All the President’s Men and The Way We Were.

He worked hard to transcend being typecast for his good looks, through his political advocacy and a willingness to take on unglamorous roles.

In the 1990s and 2000s, his film credits included Indecent Proposal, The Last Castle and Spy Game, and he also worked actively as a filmmaker – helming movies including A River Runs Through It and The Legend Of Bagger Vance. In 1998, he both starred in and directed The Horse Whisperer.

But he was best known for his role as wily outlaw the Sundance Kid, opposite Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy in the 1969 film. The pair became a famous screen partnership, starring opposite each other again in The Sting a few years later, and good friends.

As well as his starring roles, Redford was also an activist and an accomplished filmmaker – winning the Oscar for best director for Ordinary People in 1981. It was the second of his two Academy Awards – the first won for his acting performance in The Sting – as well as an honorary prize in 2002.

In a career spanning seven decades, he also received three Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement honor in 1994.

In his later years, Redford took on a challenging role in All Is Lost, a 2013 survival story that featured virtually no other characters and barely any dialogue. His performance earned a standing ovation after the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2018, he received critical acclaim again in what he called his farewell movie, The Old Man And The Gun.

His legacy lives on in the Sundance Film Festival, which grew into a cornerstone of the film industry and provided a launching pad for filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Gina Prince-Bythewood and Darren Aronofsky.

And in 2016, former President Barack Obama awarded him the presidential medal of freedom – considered the US government’s highest civilian honour – saying at the time that Americans “admire Bob not just for his remarkable acting, but for having figured out what to do next”.

Robert Redford leaves behind his wife Sibylle Szaggars and two daughters – Shauna, a painter, and Amy, an actress and director.

He was previously married to Lola Van Wagenen. One of their children, Scott, died at the age of two months from sudden infant death syndrome. Another, James, died of cancer in 2020.

‘One of the lions has passed’

Tributes have been shared across social media following the announcement of Redford’s death.

Meryl Streep, who starred in Out Of Africa and Lions For Lambs opposite Redford, said: “One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend.”

Filmmaker Ron Howard, known for Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, described Redford as “a tremendously influential cultural figure for the creative choices” he made as an actor, producer and director, and said Sundance had been a “gamechanger”.

Marlee Matlin, star of the Oscar-winning CODA, said the film “came to the attention of everyone” because of the Sundance Festival.

“Sundance happened because of Robert Redford. A genius has passed,” she said.

“He was part of a new and exciting Hollywood in the 70s and 80s,” wrote author Stephen King. “Hard to believe he was 89.”

Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, wrote: “Decades ago, Robert Redford came to Utah and fell in love with this place.

“He cherished our landscapes and built a legacy that made Utah a home for storytelling and creativity.

“Through Sundance and his devotion to conservation, he shared Utah with the world. Today we honor his life, his vision, and his lasting contribution to our state.”

Entertainment

Spain votes to boycott Eurovision if Israel competes

Published

1 day ago

September 16, 2025

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Spain votes to boycott Eurovision if Israel competes

Spain has become the latest country to threaten a boycott of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel competes.

It is now the fifth broadcaster to say it will pull out over Israel’s participation, following recent announcements by the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Iceland – but the first of the competition’s so-called “Big Five”, a group which also includes Britain, Germany, Italy and France.

These countries provide the biggest financial contributions to Eurovision, with participants automatically qualifying for the final round, and their withdrawal would increase the pressure on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises the event.

The Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group, the competition’s governing body, said a decision on Israel’s participation is pending and that it has “taken note of the concerns expressed by several broadcasters”.

RTVE, the Spanish state broadcaster, announced the decision following a board vote on Tuesday.

The measure, proposed by president Jose Pablo Lopez, garnered 10 votes in favour, four against, and one abstention in the 15-member board, the broadcaster said in a statement.

Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez has previously called for Israel to be banned from the competition, highlighting how Russia was expelled following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

At the time, the EBU said the decision reflected “concern that, in light of the unprecedented crisis in Ukraine, the inclusion of a Russian entry in this year’s contest would bring the competition into disrepute”.

Recent editions of the contest, which has always expressed political neutrality, have involved demonstrations against Israel’s continued military action in Gaza – launched in response to the attack by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023, which left some 1,200 people dead.

Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Hamas attack, finished second in this year’s competition, held in Basel, Switzerland, in May – but there were protests before and during her performance. Austrian singer JJ, who won, has also called for Israel’s exclusion in 2026.

Israel has denied accusations it is committing genocide and claimed its actions have been in self-defence against Hamas. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its military action.

In a statement following the vote in Spain, contest director Martin Green said he understood the “concerns and deeply held views around the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”, and that consultation with members is ongoing “to gather views on how we manage participation and geopolitical tensions”.

Broadcasters have until mid-December to conform if they want to take part.

What have others said?

Dutch broadcaster AvroTros said last week that it was taking a stance in response to the loss of life in Gaza, with the deaths of journalists there a factor in the decision.

Irish broadcaster RTE said the country was taking the same stance, saying it was “unconscionable” to take part given the “ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza”.

Following his win in May, singer JJ said it was “disappointing to see Israel still participating”, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais. “I would like the next Eurovision to be held in Vienna and without Israel,” he added.

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The “potential impacts and consequences of either decision” are being assessed, the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group said in a statament.

Next year’s Eurovision will be the 70th anniversary of the event, and will take place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna on 16 May.