From Her Challenging Past: Tina Turner on a Life of Struggle and Success

A spokesman for Tina Turner confirmed her death on Wednesday at the age of 83. The eight-time Grammy winner, known for songs like "Proud Mary" and "What's Love Got To Do With It," opened up to CBS News' Gayle King in this "Sunday Morning" profile from October 2018. She talked about her memoir, "My Love Story," as well as her abusive marriage and breakup with Ike Turner.

When Tina Turner was 79, she provided dance instruction to Gayle King of CBS. Of course, she enrolled in her class that day.

“What’s Love Got To Do With It.” What is love if not an emotion that is experienced after the fact?

Tina Turner has a five-decade career as one of the biggest rock music performers thanks to her vocals and her performance style. She sold more than 200 million records, and her autobiography details her off-stage struggles and triumphs.

Famously shown in the Academy Award-nominated movie, "What's Love Got to Do With It.” Therefore, on the grounds that millions of people love her, I grant her a divorce.

Turner became a citizen of Switzerland, so we met her there to discuss. “This is Zurich,” wow.

In her most recent memoir, which she says that she had to persuade herself to write, she said, "Okay."

She wrote the book since there is still more to be said, so she got to work on that.

Tina said, “You always talk about yourself and what you did, so it got a little dull.”

Gayle intimated that, “Nothing about you, Tina Turner, is ever dull to us, and neither is anything about you.”

Tina said, “I adore the title of the book, My Love Story, as the premise of the novel is essentially a love story.”

The story intensifies when Turner first meets Erwin Bach, a young German record executive, in 1986. He was 30, and she was 46.

Gayle mentioned about Tina that she was at dinner and, it's a really audacious move on her part, according to a terrific narrative in the book.

“Share it, please, Tina. When you go to California, I'll tell Erwin nothing more, what did you say?”

Tina said, “Say it to someone you love, I want you to make love to me and it happened since I asked him.”

She further went on to say, “If you feel it, then no, you won't get it; if not, then sure, but that's what I wanted.

“It was the first time I got married as far as I was concerned when you say that's the first time I fell in love and finally got married some years later.

“When Ike asked me to marry him, I knew there was a reason behind it since I felt like I had been married for a while.

“But I had to admit that I was aware of it or there would be a confrontation, which is why when we married then.

Ike Turner, my first husband, and that was the first wedding inspiration for my own wedding?”

Tina Turner is trying to patch things up, and she devoted time in the book to doing so.

Gayle, asked, “About your first husband, Ike, why do you suppose that you were thinking about someone who hurt you so much?”

Tina replied, “I feel emotional because of particular conversations and

become sentimental since Ike was initially really kind to me and Anna Mae Bullock who was Tina's mother.”

When she first saw Ike, she was a tomboy from a dysfunctional family in Nutbush, Tennessee, according to her.

Turner, a well-known singer in a nightclub in St. Louis, had a variety of responses.

“I had never seen anyone more repulsive than him. He was really thin, but he had presence, and then I wanted to sing with that man, I thought as I watched him enter the stage and begin.”

As soon as she got the chance, she recorded a song with Ike that drew the attention of a record label executive and remarked, "Here's the

record.” When Gayle King asked who Tina was she said , “You said that you were Tina and that your name was Tina Turner.

Tina said about the record label executive, “I said Tina and, you are Tina. It was initially quite difficult to say anything about Tina Turner.”

The entire nation paid attention to The Ike and Tina Turner review that sprang into prominence in the late 1960s as one of the genre's most popular acts.

Tina claims that other prominent female singers competed with her, but that she was the only one who danced.

“Tina dances,” Little Richard said, “And it's difficult for us to compete with her because of that.”

Tina said, “I have always performed the Twist since I was a young girl, I have performed on stage often. But I had an unusual voice that other girl singers didn't have, and I have that voice as well.”

“Tina, does your voice sound deep to you—and does it get any deeper? —and do you like it, Tina ?” Gayle asked.

“Do you think your voice is excellent?” At first, she didn't think it was very good because it didn't sound like Diana Ross, but later, I realized that it does sound decent.

She claimed that Ike Turner, with the success of this duo came at a very heavy price.

He repeatedly mistreated her, and what really struck her about him was how nasty he was—he was cruel because he relied on me. He disliked having to rely on me, but I didn't want to start a confrontation due to the fact that Tina was constantly suffering from a black eye, broken nose, shattered lip, and broken rib.

When she finally left, she made the decision to do something she had never done before: she physically retaliated. She did this because she thought that enough was enough and she had had enough. The time to leave the house is now. She was completely impoverished and had nothing. Just 36 cents, that was all she had.

So now that she has had this career as Ike and Tina, she then had to restart as Tina.

Gayle added, “Turner, at the age of almost 50, do you believe that you will achieve the same level of success as Tina Turner?”

Tina replied, “My first thought wasn't even about the song; instead, it was about where I was heading. I was just relishing the freedom of being outside of that setting at the time as Tina.

A young producer from Australia named Roger Davies caught her eye while she was playing in hotels and casinos. The day of the recording from Roger, she rejected the demo of a song he had suggested.

Tina I walked into the studio and applied my voice in comparison to the girls because I thought the song was going to be popular, so I said, "Okay, I can sing it."

He said, "You Tina'd it up," and she replied, "Yes." Tina Turner's first number-one record was released when she was 44. She would go on to record albums full of popular songs singing in arenas with a global following

When she completed her final tour in 2007, she boarded the plane and remarked, "Yes, it's over. I really feel like it's really over."

Tina said how much people missed her. Tina said that she was glad it was over and she went home.

Tina said that they can see the music video of herself. She admits that when she watches the films, she would start to jump and move, but she said that she was done with it, though, as the years since her retirement have been challenging.

Her son, Craig, committed suicide a couple of years ago; I believe that Craig was lonely;

Tina said that she had images of him in her mind grinning all over the place, but she believed she truly wanted to get through to him more than anything else. Tina went on to say that she believed she could tell he's in a good place.

She further said that she sincerely believed that she had an intestinal stroke, failing kidneys and cancer. Her husband, Erwin, donated one of his kidneys when she needed a replacement. And she replied, "Yes, dear, but you're young, I'm already old, and I don't mind if you practice Buddhism. It teaches that accepting the fact that one lives and one dies is a given.

When he stated that, she responded, "Okay, darling, if you're willing to donate a kidney, then fine is."

Gayle asked, “As you sit here, Tina Turner, there is nothing you want in life that I don't already have.?”

Tina replied, “Everything while I'm sitting by Lake Zurich at my home is so serene, wonderful, there aren't any issues. I had a pretty difficult existence, but I didn't blame anything or anyone for it since I survived.

I'm delighted for you since you got through it without any help, so here's to you. You just earned it.”

We will all sorely miss Tina Turner for her indomitable force as a woman who defeated the odds which would have seemed to be impossible.