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Musician Ike Turner will be inducted into the Hollywood Rockwalk on April 4, 2005 with Muddy Waters, Robert Cray, Solomon Burke and Etta James in Hollywood, California.
The life story of Tina Turner was told in the HBO Max documentary Tina. A large part of her life was her musical partnership and marriage to Ike Turner. The couple married in Mexico in 1962 and had a tumultuous relationship for more than 15 years.
While the couple had great success as musical partners with hits like « Proud Mary » and « I Want to Take You Higher » and also had four sons raised together there were many lows in their union. In their 1986 autobiography, I claimed Tina, Tina Turner, Ike molested them throughout their relationship. The two divorced in 1978.
Ike Turner made headlines in the 1980s for drug use. After being arrested for cocaine possession and gun charges in the early 1980s, he said to Spin, « I liked Coke, who didn’t? I was always quiet, but this stuff makes me talk. »
But his love for cocaine would be increasing lead to his death. Ike died on December 12, 2007 at his California home after a long battle against substance abuse. The San Diego Medical Examiner’s office concluded that he died of a cocaine overdose, according to the Los Angeles Times. The coroner cited the R&B legend’s cause of death as « cocaine toxicity ». Ike was 76 years old when he died.
Ike Turner was remembered at a star-studded memorial and memorial service in December 2007. The three-hour service was held via MTV.com in the Greater Bethany Community Church Sanctuary in Gardena, California, outside of Los Angeles. Participants included singer Bonnie Raitt and music legend Little Richard, who urged the world to stop waging « this mess » against Ike Turner. « Even Jesus forgives, » said Richard.
More shocking was a spontaneous laudation from music producer Phil Spector, who used his speech to beat up Tina Turner and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. After calling Tina’s 1993 biography « What does love have to do with it? », A « piece of trash film », he attributed the career of his ex-wife to the late musician.
« Ike made Tina the jewel that she was, « said Spector. « When I saw Ike playing at the cine grill in the ’90s … there were at least five Tina Turners on stage performing that night, and any of them could have been Tina Turner. »
Spector hit Winfrey for that too for promoting Turner’s bestselling memoir, which he claimed « demonized and slandered Ike. » « The book wouldn’t have sold 10 books, » Spector said. “It was badly written. It was a piece of junk, and because Oprah adored Tina, she didn’t feel wrong in denigrating a « brother ». «
GettyIke Turner and American singer-songwriter Tina Turner at Heathrow Airport, London, UK, October 27, 1975. (
Tina also made allegations of Ike’s years of abuse against her in her memoir, My Love Story in 2018. « He threw hot coffee in my face and caused third-degree burns, » she wrote on USA Today. « He used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood in my throat while I was singing . He broke my jaw. And I couldn’t remember what it was like not to have a black eye. «
In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Tina revealed that she was before his death could never make peace with her ex-husband and therefore did not attend his funeral.
« I don’t know if I could ever forgive everything Ike has ever done to me, » she said. « But Ike is dead, so we don’t have to worry about him. «
Ref: https://heavy.com
