Performing Arts
Tina Turner
Tina Turner
American-born, Swiss singer, Tina Turner* (November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023), was in kinship care as a teenager.
Tina Turner, who has African American heritage, was born Anna Mae Bullock into a sharecropping family in Nutbush, Tennessee. Her parents, Zelma and Floyd Bullock, fought constantly and eventually, when Tina was about 11, Zelma left the family. Floyd remarried, but he too abandoned his family, leaving his teenage girls with relatives. After Tina's sister Alline moved to St Louis, Tina went to live with their Grandmother. When Tina was 16, she felt stifled by the small town of Nutbush and, encouraged by Alline she too moved St Louis and re-connected with her mother.
It was in Club Manhattan, St Louis, that Anna met Ike Turner of the Kings of Rhythm and became Tina Turner. Within months of Tina performing with the group, the Kings of Rhythm had a hit record. Soon the group became the Ike and Tina Turner Review.
In 1976 Tina Turner left what she says was an abusive marriage with Ike Turner. The couple divorced in 1978.
Tina Turner then embarked on her solo career, with 'Private Dancer' (1984) becoming an international success. Tina Turner moved to Switzerland in 2013 and subsequently relinquished her US citizenship. She is the author of 2 autobiographies. Both Ike and Turner were “inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Tina also received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2018.