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Tina Turner died this past Wednesday, shocking the world. The singer and actress was a cultural icon, someone who achieved global acclaim by making music that mattered and shed a light on her personal struggles.
Turner spent her last decades of life in Switzerland, acquiring a citizenship and often speaking about the perks of her new life.
Turner had a tumultous start of her career. Before she became the “Queen of Rock and Roll,” Turner was a part of a musical duo Ike and Tina Turner, alongside her then husband and manager. The two divorced in 1978, prompting Turner to reveal the abuse she endured. “He needed to control me, economically and psychologically, so I could never leave him,” reads Turner’s biography, “Tina Turner: My Love Story.”
In the ‘80s, Turner started dating Erwin Bach, a music producer., offering her a clean slate. "I have left America because my success was in another country and my boyfriend was in another country," she said in an interview with Larry King. "My boyfriend moved there to run the company and I always wanted to go to Switzerland and I was very happy."
Turner revealed she was even more famous in Europe than she was in America, and continued to have a profitable career abroad. She and Bach married in 2013, and she acquired a Swiss citizenship. The Mayor of Kusnacht, a municipality in Switzerland, believes Turner loved the country because it gave her the opportunity to live a normal life. "She could go to restaurants without being photographed all the time . . . in the street, people didn't stare at her or ask for her autograph,” he said to ABC.
Turner discussed her life and the abuse she endured in her HBO documentary “Tina.” She also discussed her relationship with Bach, one that lasted decades. “He was [16 years] younger [than me]. He was 30 years old at the time and had the prettiest face. I mean, you cannot [describe] it. It was like insane. [I thought], 'Where did he come from?' He was really so good-looking,” she said.