Insights into Tina Turner’s past health struggles before her husband made great sacrifices to keep her alive

YEARS before her tragic death, Tina Turner was struggling with multiple health issues before her husband made a great sacrifice to keep her alive.

When the legendary singer met music producer Erwin Bach in the 1908s, it was love at first sight and the start of a three-decade relationship.

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Tina met Erwin, who is 17 years her junior, in 1985 when he was hired to pick her up from the airport before a concert in Germany.

Speaking on her HBO documentary Tina, the icon said she was immediately smitten with him.

“He had the prettiest face. There was no mistaking it,” she said. “It was like saying, ‘Where is he from?’ He really did look that good. My heart was racing. This means that a soul has met. My hands were shaking.”

For Erwin, love wasn’t instantaneous, but he later visited Tina in the US after learning she was interested in him, and their relationship began later that year.

“It is love. It’s something we both have for each other. I always refer to it as an electric charge. I still have it,” Erwin said in the documentary. “Even though I left her two hours ago, I still have that feeling. it’s in my heart It makes me very warm.”

The couple only married in 2013 after 27 years together, although Erwin proposed to her in 1989 on Tina’s 50th birthday.

The singer told Oprah Winfrey, “I said, ‘I don’t have an answer.’ It wasn’t yes, it wasn’t no.

After her volatile marriage to her first husband, Ike Turner, Tina expressed that she didn’t want to feel controlled.

“Marriage means ownership. I didn’t want the ‘mine’ anymore. I was fed up with it,” she said, adding that even after three years with Erwin, she still “didn’t think” he was committed enough to her.

Eventually she changed her mind and married Erwin in Switzerland in front of more than 200 people.

“I wanted to do my best. I wanted my garden and my guests to be as good as possible. And they were,” Tina said.

“I’M NOT GOING BACK”

However, Tina’s later years were not without problems, especially after she announced her retirement from performing in 2009.

To mark the end of her recording career, Tina capped it all off with a six-month, 90-date 50th Anniversary World Tour, concluding on May 5, 2009 in Sheffield, England.

“Nobody knew how tired I was from singing and dancing. It’s work,” said Tina, who was almost 70 when she finished her last stage show.

“I wanted to retire and not worry. That’s what this tour did for me. I reached my goal. At that moment I received the revelation: ‘This is it. I’m going home now.’ I was returning to a place that I decided in my final phase that I wanted to be.

In her book “My Love Story” Tina wrote about her return to Switzerland with Erwin the day after her last show and she knew: “That was it”.

“I got up the next morning, didn’t see anyone and got on the plane with Erwin,” she wrote. “I sat still, calm and determined. I took a deep breath and said to myself, ‘I’m not going back.’”

Alongside her retirement happiness, however, came a slew of health issues.

Three weeks after her marriage to Erwin, she suffered a stroke and had to learn to walk again.

In 2016 she was diagnosed with colon cancer and high blood pressure, which she treated with homeopathic remedies.

Her high blood pressure put a strain on her kidneys, eventually leading to kidney failure.

“I had two options: either regular dialysis or a kidney transplant,” Tina wrote in her book. “Only the transplant would give me a good chance of an almost normal life. But the chances of getting a donor kidney were slim.”

Faced with frightening health issues, Tina considered assisted suicide and even became a member of Exit – a non-profit organization working to legalize voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide.

But Erwin intervened, telling Tina that he “didn’t want another woman or another life.”

“Then he shocked me. He said he wanted to give me one of his kidneys.”

Tina wrote that she was “overwhelmed by the magnitude of his offering” and that after the 2017 transplant was a success, she was “happy, overwhelmed and relieved that we made it through alive.”

SIMPLY THE BEST

Tina died on Wednesday at the age of 83 “after a long illness at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland,” a spokesman said in a statement.

“With her, the world loses a music legend and role model.

“Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee, USA. She rose to fame in the late ’60s as the singer of the band Ike & Tina Turner Revue, but later found success worldwide as a solo artist,” they continued.

“With her music and her inexhaustible joie de vivre, Tina Turner delighted millions of fans and inspired many artists of subsequent generations.”

“World hits like ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’, ‘Private Dancer’ and ‘The Best’, more than 180 million album sales, 12 Grammy Awards and over three decades of sold-out stadium tours around the world are just…” part of their uniqueness inheritance

The representative added, “There will be a private funeral service that will be attended by close friends and family.”

“Please respect her family’s privacy at this difficult time. Further press inquiries will not be answered.”

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